Iowa university presidents tried to collaborate on performance-based funding proposal

Before the Board of Regents this month approved a new way of allocating state funds to its public universities that could take tens of millions of dollars away from the University of Iowa, the school presidents tried to come up with a joint recommendation for new funding metrics.

But Board of Regents spokeswoman Sheila Doyle Koppin said those efforts fell short.

'The university presidents met to discuss common metrics for performance-based funding and did not come up with joint metrics or a model,” Koppin said.

According to emails recently made public following an open records request from The Gazette, Board of Regents officials expected a joint proposal from the three presidents at a 'performance-based revenue model task force” meeting in March.

'In conversing with (Regents) President (Bruce) Rastetter, it is Chair David Miles' understanding that the university presidents are working on a joint recommendation for the design and metrics of a performance-based funding model,” Regents Chief Business Officer Patrice Sayre wrote in a March 4 email to the university presidents and staff.

Sayre in that email said Miles, who chaired the task force, also wanted the presidents to answer a list of questions and outline their 'proposed approach to performance funding.” She then asked for an advance copy of the joint proposal, but - the following day - said she no longer was expecting one.

'I have been advised that the presidents will present separate proposals at next week's performance-based revenue model task force,” Sayre wrote in a March 5 email.

The Board of Regents convened the five-member task force last year to review its old model for distributing state dollars to the public universities and recommend a new way of allocating the money that weighs performance metrics such as graduation rates, access and enrollment.

The task force began meeting in October and heard from local and national research groups about what other states are doing and what performance-based funding could look like in Iowa.

The group heard from the university presidents in March before agreeing on a final recommendation in May.

UI President Sally Mason's pitch at the March meeting suggested allocating funds based on items such as student progress toward a degree, affordability, quality of entering students, quality of academic programs, and research and economic development.

ISU President Steven Leath proposed tying 60 percent of the state dollars to Iowa resident enrollment, 15 percent to access, 15 percent to student success and 10 percent to research and economic development.

In the end, the task force recommended a model that looked much like Leath's, and the Board of Regents earlier this month approved new funding metrics that tie:

'60 percent of state-allocated higher education funds to resident enrollment

'15 percent to progress and attainment

'10 percent to access

'5 percent to sponsored research

'5 percent to graduate and professional student enrollment

'5 percent for the regents to determine how to allocate.

If those changes were implemented over one year, the UI would lose about $47.8 million. But the approved funding model is set to roll out over a three-year period beginning in 2016, and it will cap the amount of money that can move from one university to another at 2 percent of the 2013 budget.

With that cap, if enrollment figures remain unchanged, the UI could lose $12.9 million a year, and Iowa State University would become the top-funded university in the state.

The University of Northern Iowa would see the biggest overall allocation increase of nearly $24 million.

In the wake of the regents decision to change its funding model, UI officials have said they plan to ramp up recruiting of Iowa students and compete to keep those state dollars.

The state legislature will have the final say on how money is distributed as it must approve the Board of Regents annual budget, including how it intends to allocate funds.