Budget Allocations for Fiscal Year 2025

General (Ret.) Mark A. Welsh III
President

December 18, 2024

Members of the Aggie Family,

With budget discussions already underway for Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26) I’ve learned that the decisions we reached for FY25, and are now executing, may not have reached many of you. I apologize for that and will redouble my efforts to ensure you are aware of any major decisions that impact our university as we move forward. As we wind down this semester, I want to be clear on our university funding priorities for the next fiscal year.

As you’ll recall, one of my initial priorities was to establish several key groups to help holistically review and evaluate funding and facilities requests, which resulted in the launch of a Strategic Budget Council (SBC) and an Executive Facilities Committee (EFC).

The SBC provides annual budget guidance and priorities, reviews unit budget submissions and makes decisions on funding priorities and allocations. It includes representatives of the faculty, staff, student body and select campus organizations — the Provost, the Speaker of the Faculty Senate, Student Government, Council of Deans and President's Cabinet, to name just a few. I chair the SBC and it is administratively managed by the university’s Chief Financial Officer.

I also chair the EFC, which is administratively managed by the university’s Chief Operating Officer. The EFC is the clearinghouse for all facilities projects, to include Athletics facility projects and projects on our branch campuses, teaching sites and other locations. The purpose of the EFC is to ensure proposed projects meet operational requirements, align with cost projections, are supported by a clear and executable business plan and a realistic, supportable funding plan, and are compatible with the university master plan. The SBC and EFC work together to ensure facility projects are prioritized and scheduled in a way that ensures the highest priority projects are planned, funded and executed on a timeline that meets university requirements.

For FY25, the SBC met with each Dean and Vice President to discuss their short- and long-term initiatives, major challenges and funding requirements to prioritize the most important efforts for funding allocation. We knew we had a total FY25 budget of $2.5 billion. We also knew we had $73 million in recurring funds available and $50 million in one-time funding available. Deans and Vice Presidents submitted requests for a total of $116 million in recurring costs, $48 million in one-time costs and $1.2 billion for new infrastructure and facility projects across the university.

To help prioritize allocations for FY25, I asked the SBC to focus on two key themes: 1) Does it help “fix the foundation of the university?” and 2) Does it enhance the student experience? In my August update, I shared a general breakout of the categories the SBC decided to fund after our deliberations. Here are some specific examples:

• $30.6 million for a faculty and staff merit pool in FY25
• $23 million in new faculty lines and faculty salary adjustments
• $34 million in research investment, infrastructure and facilities
• $7 million in student services and programs
• $4.1 million in classroom improvements
• $3.1 million investment in our Higher Education Center at McAllen

We also earmarked $8 million for use in FY25 to start funding initiatives identified in the Capacity and Student Experience Studies. We will finalize decisions from those studies over the next two months.

In total, we allocated $122 million of new funding to “fixing the foundation” and “enhancing the student experience.” I was recently asked whether any of it benefits our faculty directly. Actually, $61 million of that amount, a full 50%, directly benefits our faculty.

From a facilities perspective, there were 118 potential projects requested — far, far more than we can afford. Eleven are already in progress or are planned to start in FY25. Among them are:

• Mays Business Education Complex Building #2
• Railroad Quiet Zone (We’re trying to make it quieter for those near the tracks!)
• Clinical Veterinary Teaching and Research Complex
• Phase I (the exterior) of the Academic Building Renovation
• Chemistry Wing 2nd Floor Renovation-Phase 1
• Chemistry Wing 2nd Floor Renovation-Phase 2
• The new Aplin Center — this is still just a working name (Hospitality Management, Retail Sales, the Texas A&M Visitor Center, classrooms, etc.)
• Space Institute on the grounds of NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston
• Heldenfels 4th Floor Instructional Lab renovations
• HEEP Lab Building 1st and 2nd floor renovations

In addition to those, we funded campus power and network infrastructure projects and also prioritized eight additional projects for funding over the next three fiscal years. It was clear we need more research facilities added to the capital projects list, and we've already started down that path, with the new Biology Sciences Building — a $220 million investment fully funded — leading this multi-year capital project priority list. For the next seven priority projects, programs of requirement, business plans and funding sources are being reviewed and solidified. These planned projects include increasing our dining spaces, the Center for Learning Arts Innovation for the School of Performance, Visualization and Fine Arts, the Mays Business Education Complex Building #3, the expansion of the Cyclotron facility, construction of a new Poultry Science Research and Teaching Center at its existing location, a multi-use student space in Aggie Park and a Virtual Production Institute in Fort Worth. Each aligns with outcomes from our Student Experience, Capacity and Space Allocation Studies, accounting for areas of growth needed to support faculty, staff and students in our teaching and research mission.

The EFC is also focused on building a detailed baseline understanding of the current condition of each of the 270+ campus facilities on our main campus, including research labs. Beginning in January, a contractor will spend most of the next year helping us with this initiative. The work will provide a data set that allows us to compare costs of deferred maintenance versus new construction and better assess our options for addressing long-term facility maintenance on our main campus. The same process can then be applied to our branch campuses, teaching sites and other locations.

As we now look ahead to FY26 and beyond, I anticipate we will follow a similar process with the SBC working closely with our Deans, Vice Presidents, and faculty, staff and student representatives to identify and prioritize needs.

As always, I encourage you to reach out to me at president@tamu.edu with your questions.

r/mark
General (Ret.) Mark A. Welsh III, President