Skip navigation.
New Mexico State University

Memos & Newsletters

To: The New Mexico State University family
From: President Michael V. Martin

Subject: NMSU funding and the Legislature

Here at New Mexico State University, as with universities across the country, the subject of funding our priorities demands and gets a lot of attention. We are concerned about how funding affects the quality of education we can provide students across the state as well as how it affects our faculty and staff. We might wish it were not so, but money - and where it comes from - has a tremendous impact on all of us and on our goals.

As we look forward to working with the Legislature during the upcoming 30-day session, I wanted to share with all of you who work for and are dedicated to NMSU the important facts about where our money comes from. The truth is that we are very restricted in getting and spending revenue.

In fact, this is the tightest system in which I have ever worked. But be assured, our goal is to make it work for all of us and for our students.

First, the only way to grow the total amount of money we get from the state each year is to grow our enrollment. As you know, that has been a challenge. This year there were roughly only 19,500 high school graduates in all of New Mexico, according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. Twenty-six percent of those who will attend college will go out of state. As with other New Mexico universities, we are fighting an uphill battle.

In the face of that, there are other mechanisms for raising funds:

  • The state bonds in which the state sells bonds and we get the money. But this must go to a vote of the general public and the funds must be used for capital outlays.
  • A bonding project in which we sell our own bonds. We pay the interest on these bonds and funds can only be used for capital outlays.
  • State appropriations working with the governor and the legislature. We have been very lucky to have a governor who does care about higher education and local legislators who are supporting our needs and goals.
  • Private donations. Again, we have been blessed with some very generous donors.
  • Grants and endowments.
  • Tuition and fees.

Yet, for all of this, we continue to struggle. We are facing increased financial issues, not the least of which is increased energy costs. Although legislation was approved to fund energy as well as health costs for inflationary increases, the Legislature has not done that in recent years. We have asked the Legislature to look at those costs and recognize the need. We need that funding to include coverage for inflation.

In addition, building renewal and replacement for New Mexico institutions has been under-funded for years. In fact, we have been funded at 40 percent of the needed level. So we have joined with other New Mexico universities and asked for $100 million for all universities to cover these projects this year on top of the 40 percent funding derived from the prescribed formula. We are simply hoping to catch up with the needs in this area.

There are specific projects that must be funded in order for us to fulfill our mission of teaching, service and research. We have made requests for those to the State Legislature. These are programs such as aerospace engineering or the new Creative Media Institute. If you would like to see the complete list of requests, it is available on our legislative Web page at http://www.nmsu.edu/~legislat/ .

Salary increases are needed for both faculty and staff. We recognize that, and the governor recognizes that. We have asked for a five percent increase in compensation. The Legislature usually suggests the percent of increase in a line item in the budget. We can go lower or higher than the recommended amount. When we go higher, we must find the additional money ourselves. For those increases we often are in a bind.

Enrollment growth money is getting harder to come by for all New Mexico universities and we believe the formula must change. For one thing, the formula is the same for research universities as it is for community colleges. We believe there needs to be a differential for research universities. The formula also is applied campus by campus, meaning campuses in the NMSU system are competing with each other for the same funds. This should not be happening. We are one university and we should be funded in that manner.

For our part, we need to beef up recruitment and retention. We need to assist with improvements in pre-K-12 education so more students are prepared for college. Then we must recruit heavily inside and out of the state.

We need to eliminate the tuition credit part of the funding formula. When the state does give us an appropriation - say $100,000 - it subtracts a two percent figure based on its assumption that we will raise tuition. So instead of actually receiving $100,000, we receive $98,000 from the state.

As you can see from this, a vast amount of our budget is predetermined. The system is so tight, we have little discretion and virtually no resources to demonstrate our care for our employees and students.

Despite these difficulties, we are continuing to work hard to change some of the formulas and guidelines so that New Mexico's universities and their employees can breathe a little easier financially. We must do better so we not only retain our faculty and staff, but also so we can continue to bring aboard the best and brightest to help us achieve our mission. We will keep you apprised of our progress in these efforts.