Harrisburg hearing full of heated debate about education cuts

In the middle of a heated back-and-forth debate with state legislators Monday, Chancellor Mark… In the middle of a heated back-and-forth debate with state legislators Monday, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg outlined in detail for the first time which Pitt programs would suffer drastic cuts if legislators pass a proposed budget that would slice the school’s state funding in half.

Nordenberg outlined the potential damage before the House Appropriations Committee, voicing strong opposition to Republican Gov. Tom Corbett’s first state spending plan. The chancellor’s words reflected the tense environment brewing within the state’s education community, where leaders are worried that substantial cuts could jeopardize the function of vital university programs.

Gov. Corbett proposed the cuts — which would result in a loss of $900 million in state funding for education — earlier this month as part of a plan to bridge a $4 billion budget gap. Under the new spending plan, Pitt would receive about $80.2 million, as opposed to the about $165 million it received this fiscal year.

The meeting, originally scheduled to run 90 minutes, lasted four hours. State representatives grilled Nordenberg and other state university leaders about how they handle state funds and how much of their institutions’ budgets is given to faculty.

The university leaders shot back with specific examples of how these cuts will adversely affect programs within their respective schools — and by extension, the surrounding communities.

Nordenberg said the cuts would eliminate state funding to Pitt’s School of Medicine and Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, along with funding for a clinic in the School of Dental Medicine and funding for the center for the education of health professionals.

University spokesman John Fedele later confirmed Nordenberg’s report, but could not immediately share more specific information about exactly how much Pitt’s medical school gets from the state.

“This is a curtailment of services that are unique and meaningful,” Nordenberg said.

Republican Rep. Jeff Pyle, who serves on the appropriations committee, addressed Nordenberg near the end of the hearing with a string of questions. He asked the chancellor whether it is common for research institutions to patent or copyright discoveries and what Pitt does with the extra revenue generated from such findings.

Nordenberg said that it is common practice for research universities to patent discoveries, but that the costs of conducting and patenting research leaves little extra revenue to devote to tuition.

“We have a policy that would reinvest most of those dollars into the research enterprise,” he said.

At the end of this exchange, Pyle told the chancellor he had nothing but respect for the UPMC Health System, which saved his life in 2005 after removing a cancerous kidney.

Republican Rep. Martin Causer, who sits on the committee, also questioned Nordenberg about how the cuts might effect Pitt’s regional campuses.

Nordenberg explained that each of Pitt’s regional campuses — Bradford, Greensburg, Johnstown and Titusville — are doing “very well.”

“We have no plans to retreat from our commitment to our [branch] campuses, but cuts at a particular level require that you look at all of your programs and make decisions about places where you can find room to close your budget gaps. Regional campuses tend to be more vulnerable than main campuses,” Nordenberg said.

He went on to compare Pitt’s regional campuses to nearby Carnegie Mellon — which has locations dispersed throughout the world — explaining that CMU’s branches campuses do not serve the Pennsylvania economy like Pitt’s do.

By the end of the meeting, it seemed that both the legislators and university administrators better understood each others’ positions.

Rep. William Adolph Jr., Republican chair of the House Appropriations Committee, concluded the hearing by reminding everybody of the amount of work that lay ahead in determining a bipartisan solution on exactly how much to cut from education.