State funds sought as SAU cites need for cooling tower.

Rusted towers at a chiller plant have prompted Southern Arkansas University to join Henderson State University in asking Arkansas lawmakers for a portion of the state’s coronavirus rainy day funds.

SAU needs $495,000 to purchase a new cooling tower to allow the chiller to properly cool the campus’s north side.

While Henderson State requested $825,000 to avoid furloughs because of a lack of reserves, it’s not clear what SAU’s budget circumstances are. Documents related to the Magnolia university’s finances and a proposed budget for the university’s upcoming trustees meeting weren’t immediately available.

But in a two-paragraph letter to Arkansas Rep. Lane Jean, R-Magnolia, SAU President Trey Berry said the coronavirus pandemic has “brought enormous budget cuts” to the university.

“On any other year, our campus could find a way to secure the funds for this purchase,” Berry wrote.

He called the need to replace the 35-year-old cooling tower — the largest on campus — “dire” and said “it is truly about to cease functioning.”

The towers are about five years past their useful life, university spokeswoman Su-Ann Tan said.

As public colleges and universities nationwide have struggled with stagnant or decreasing state appropriations, maintenance is often one of the expenses reduced through conservative budgeting. Schools also have relied on tuition and fee increases to make ends meet.

SAU, where enrollment has grown by several hundred students in recent years to about 4,500 last fall, still raised academic costs about 3% last spring.

But the trend is to keep tuition and fees mostly the same next school year to ease the burden on students and help encourage enrollment. Along with anticipated declines in state appropriations because of lost tax revenue, this has pushed schools to decrease budgets for next school year and even plan to dip into their reserve funding to break even.

SAU trustees meet at 10 a.m. Thursday to approve the budget.

The university has benefited from the state’s change to funding public colleges and universities based on productivity. This year, a 20.9% increase in its productivity index resulted in about $1.8 million more in state allocations. The university has graduated more students and awarded more credentials, which can be earned on the way to higher degrees.

But the university’s gains in state funding and more were wiped out by what the state took away — nearly $2.5 million — after revenue concerns this spring.

SAU received about $4 million in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act funding this spring, half of which must be used for emergency grants to students and the other half of which can only be used to cover the institution’s costs of transitioning to remote learning.

The university’s request for state rainy day funds is expected to go before the Arkansas Legislative Council on Friday. No agenda has been set yet.

In late March, Arkansas lawmakers set aside $173.6 million in unallocated surplus funds and created the Covid-19 Rainy Day Fund. It’s intended to help cover costs incurred because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A committee of six Arkansas legislative leaders decides whether to approve requests, and two members of each chamber must OK a request for it be approved.

Last month, the committee initially rejected Henderson State’s request. Senate President Pro Tempore Jim Hendren, R-Sulphur Springs, voted against it because he said he didn’t believe higher education funding to be an emergency and that nonemergency requests for the rainy day fund should be brought before a larger group of lawmakers.

He changed his vote after the Legislative Council, with audible dissent, recommended the funding.