Appropriation Request

Penn State’s 2015-16

Appropriation Request

The Commonwealth’s investment in Penn State’s appropriation is an investment that transforms lives, promotes upward economic mobility, and provides the Commonwealth with citizens who have the knowledge and skills to drive economic growth and innovation. Penn State, with its twenty four campuses and cooperative extension programs that serve every county, is in an unparalleled position to advance the priorities of Pennsylvania’s residents and elected officials. As Penn State’s 18th President, I am committed to creating and implementing new ways to leverage the partnership between the Commonwealth and Penn State to stimulate economic development in Pennsylvania and to ensure the career success of our students.

The Budget Plan

Penn State is not satisfied with simply addressing normal operating increases though the appropriation request. Penn State’s multiple campuses, agricultural research and cooperative extension programs, and other outreach activities have the potential to bring economic vitality to communities all across the Commonwealth. We propose to do much more.

In addition to addressing the normal operating increases, Penn State’s budget plan and appropriation request for fiscal year 2015-16 proposes an investment in the Penn State-Commonwealth partnership with a strategic goal of transforming Pennsylvania’s economy. With focused investment, the partnership between Penn State and the Commonwealth has extraordinary potential to stimulate the economy in ways that will launch our students and others into successful careers in new companies that, with adequate investment, would be attracted to Pennsylvania and also in startup companies based on the commercialization of intellectual property generated by Penn State’s researchers.

Penn State’s proposed 2015-16 budget plan and appropriation request reflects basic operating cost increases of $53.5 million. This increase would be considerably more if not for the internal reallocations and targeted costs savings of $34.4 million that are also reflected in the plan.

The revenue to fund the $53.5 million of operating cost increases would be composed of three sources: modest tuition and fee increases, additional non-tuition income from investment returns and indirect cost recovery, and our request for increased investment from the state.

A Penn State Strategic Priority: Stimulating Pennsylvania’s Economy and Student Career Success

As the Commonwealth’s land grant research university, Penn State proposes a state investment in a methodical and specific plan to promote student career success and to create jobs through economic development. It is an imperative that Penn State consciously and purposefully seek ways to increase the value of our intellectual capabilities to serve the state, the nation and the world. We have identified three targeted areas that can generate substantial economic activity.

1. Investment in Technology Commercialization and Entrepreneurial Education: Entrepreneurs-in-Residence (EiR)

Our proposed Commonwealth-Penn State entrepreneurial partnership is a plan to expand our current efforts to promote the career success of our students and to create jobs through economic development and innovation. Penn State is a discovery engine, but we are not content to leave the considerable intellectual property we generate on the laboratory bench. As part of a comprehensive approach to improve our technology commercialization efforts, we would like to build, with the support of the Commonwealth, an Entrepreneurs-in-Residence program that recruits seasoned entrepreneurs into our faculty ranks at Penn State colleges and campuses. The EiRs would work with faculty, staff and students to facilitate, not only the development of discovery and knowledge creation into companies, but also to provide unparalleled educational opportunities for our students at all levels. Our objective is, quite simply, a deliberate culture transformation that promotes the transition from invention and creativity to the marketplace, while simultaneously ensuring student success.

Penn State requests an additional investment of $1.8 million from the Commonwealth to support this agenda. This will allow for the recruitment of eight Entrepreneurs-in-Residence for the first phase of this program. These EiRs will be funded to colleges and campuses based on requests through a competitive proposal process that will require cost sharing from the submitting units.

Elevating entrepreneurial engagement of students and faculty will require additional investment in the Offices of Technology Management, Sponsored Programs and General Counsel. We request an additional $600,000 to recruit and support new personnel who will provide critical support to guide and enhance transformation of Penn State ideas into products and jobs. New positions required include an experienced attorney specializing in intellectual property and two additional licensing officers, or their equivalent.

1. Investment in Student Success: Engineering, Business, and Nursing Education

We have identified in this year’s budget request three disciplines where investment is needed to enhance Penn State’s ability to continue to contribute not only to student success but also workforce needs in the Commonwealth. These are Engineering, Business, and Nursing. While we are committed to student career success in all fields, these three fields are where our aspiration coincides with key work force opportunities and needs in the Commonwealth. In order to assure that elements of student success are imbedded in all curricular components, strategic investment in our faculty is necessary.

The College of Engineering and the Smeal College of Business are both in need of new permanent budget lines to fund investment in full-time faculty in both the tenure and non-tenure tracks to respond both to the rising demand from undergraduate students in these fields as well as the opportunities that exist to provide expanded high-quality graduate education at the masters level and beyond, both residential and online through our highly regarded World Campus. While Penn State has for many years responded to this emerging demand through allocation of temporary resources for fixed-term faculty, the need to make some of these hires permanent to better serve our students is compelling. Graduates from both colleges will contribute directly to the advancement of the State’s economy through their post-graduation career activity. Faculty are also central to our knowledge-creation/discovery enterprise, which is at the core of our commercialization agenda.

The College of Nursing is also in need of investment in its full-time faculty to respond to high, and increasing, demand for nursing graduates throughout the Commonwealth. As the nursing program is offered at multiple campuses of the university, this investment will have a profound impact across the state. The U.S. is projected to experience a shortage of Registered Nurses (RNs) that is expected to intensify as Baby Boomers age and the need for health care grows. Adding to the need for registered nurses is the launch of the ACA which will provide access to health insurance for 32 million Americans who were previously uncovered. The Bureau of Labor Statisticsprojects the total number of job openings nationwide for nurses due to growth and replacements to be 1.05 million by 2022. Further, the need for advanced practice nurses (those prepared as nurse practitioners, clinical nurse specialists, nurse midwives, and nurse anesthetists) is also projected to increase in response to three challenges: increased demand for care from an aging population, the passage of the ACA and a stalled growth in physician supply. Nurse practitioners (NPs) play a critical role in extending access to primary care, especially in rural settings. If we are to achieve the goal of a patient centered, high quality, seamless and affordable health care delivery system, the future of health care must include the provision of community-based episodic care and chronic care management led by nurses. While the number of graduates of NP programs has grown dramatically over the last several years, we have not produced an adequate supply to address the upcoming need. Pennsylvania is an exemplar of this increasing challenge, but Penn State’s newest College is poised, with the right investment, to respond strongly and effectively.

Penn State requests an additional $3.5 million (Engineering $2.0M, Business $720K, Nursing $780K) from the Commonwealth to support investments in these programs. While Penn State has invested considerable internal resources in them to date, we have not been able to keep up with the resource needs that have resulted from the rapidly increasing demand. Of all our programs, these three arguably will have the most direct positive benefit on the economic development of the Commonwealth as graduates are employed in these priority areas. Complementing this request for operating support, we will seek to open discussions about obtaining a special capital appropriation for the project authorized by the Commonwealth in section (4)(ix)(V) of the “Capital Budget Project Itemization Act of 2013-14” for state-of-the art research and teaching space for the College of Engineering as well as the project included in the Proposed Capital Budget Request for 2015-16 to expand and renew the Health and Human Development East Building that houses the College of Nursing.

1. Strategic Investment in Support of Commonwealth Priorities

Penn State is at the forefront of cutting-edge research in a number of areas that have direct relevance to economic development opportunities for the Commonwealth. We have identified two in this budget request where direct support from the state will be instrumental in our, and therefore we believe the Commonwealth’s success. These are the Institute for Natural Gas Research and the Institute for CyberScience.

Institute for Natural Gas Research (INGaR)

Bringing together one of the largest contingents of natural gas experts in the United States, Penn State has established an Institute for Natural Gas Research (INGaR), which is expected to provide much-needed study into this important form of energy. Working closely with industry, and state and federal government partners, members of INGaR will conduct independent and rigorous scientific research in the broad area of natural gas. Through the institute, researchers and students will develop interdisciplinary approaches to study the complex processes involved in natural gas exploration, production, transmission, storage, processing, combustion, infrastructure and water transport, usage and impact. While the prospects for shale gas production are promising, particularly in Pennsylvania, there remains considerable uncertainty regarding various aspects of this resource and its overall impact, including environmental concerns.A major goal of the institute is to support the ongoing development of a natural gas-based economy that will allow the country eventually to consume a predominantly domestic supply of gas for many years to come.

INGaR is a collaborative effort between two of Penn State’s colleges: Earth and Mineral Sciences and Engineering. Currently, more than 50 faculty members in various departments at Penn State have significant research interests and active research programs in natural gas and related areas. Over the next several years, 12 new faculty members will be hired to further strengthen key areas and produce the needed joint information and knowledge that will solve some of the complex challenges related to the exploration and use of natural gas. Initial hires will be focused in key enabling areas that strategically complement existing expertise, including: Drilling engineering, well completions, smart well technologies; exploration geophysics, sedimentary basin evolution; water supply and water quality; geostatistics, reservoir characterization and petrophysics; combustion; gas separations; integrated reservoir engineering; petrophysics; surface facilities engineering; energy systems optimization; and catalysis for methane conversion. Faculty appointments will be made in the following departments: Energy and Mineral Engineering, and Geosciences, in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences; and Civil and Environmental Engineering, Mechanical and Nuclear Engineering, and Chemical Engineering in the College of Engineering.

Institute for CyberScience (ICS)

The problems targeted by ICS, in collaboration with other Penn State institutes, include a range of focus areas not only of relevance to the Commonwealth but also to the national and global landscape, including infectious diseases, global energy needs, personalized therapies and materials design. Some of these problems may eventually be solved with virtual worlds where viruses can emerge, multiply and evolve; programs for real-time personalized therapies; and tailored nanoscale materials that can be designed and created. One area of critical importance is in data management and mining, which can aid in model discovery and simulation-based data collection from observatories viewing watersheds, ocean systems or any biologically complex population. The institute targets high-impact, large-scale research tied to improving life on Earth through the environment, biological sciences and innovation.

ICS is the coordinating unit for multidisciplinary computational science research at Penn State and organized under the Office of the Vice President for Research. The institute is affiliated with the Colleges of Agricultural Sciences, the Smeal College of Business, Earth and Mineral Sciences, Engineering, Health and Human Development, Information Sciences and Technology, The Liberal Arts, the Eberly College of Science, Great Valley School of Graduate and Professional Studies and the University Libraries. Also associated with the institute are prominent University units including the Applied Research Laboratory, Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences, Materials Research Institute, Social Science Research Institute and Penn State Institute of Energy and the Environment. Information Technology Services, which provides the information technology tools and infrastructure necessary to carry out the University's mission, is also a key player in the Institute.

ICS will develop and provide the state-of-the art shared cyber infrastructure(CI) that includes the full suite of hardware,software, data, services and technical support that meet specific requirements of the communitiesof research they will serve. CI-cores will be developed within the shared systems along fourwell-differentiated key areas of strengths and opportunities. The first three CI-cores include: (1)earth systems CI,focused at the intersection of climate, environment, hydrology, and earth sciences,(2) life sciences CI, targetinga range of research from plant, animal, andhuman genomics to disease, interventions and population scale studies; and (3) networks andsecurity, including a broad array of defense related applications. A fourth (4) computationalscience and engineering CI-core will support the computing and data needs of projects that lie beyond the scope of the first three CI-cores; new CI-cores will evolve whencritical mass is attained in novel research domains.

Penn State requests an investment of $2.0 million($1.0M INGaR; $1.0M ICS) to help build and complement capacity in these Institutes. Both INGaR and ICS have extraordinary potential for both direct and indirect impact on Pennsylvania’s economic development. We seek partnership with the Commonwealth in investing in the faculty and other resources necessary for the success of these ventures. Faculty will be instrumental in not only the critical research necessary in these emerging multidisciplinary fields, but also in educating the next generation of professionals needed to support growth in related industries in Pennsylvania, while fundamental infrastructure investment helps position Penn State strategically to compete for additional external funding resources, both nationally and globally.

Agricultural Research and Cooperative Extension

The 2015-16 budget plan proposes a $3.2 million increase in the state’s investment in Agricultural Research and Cooperative Extension. $2.2 million of the requested amount would need to be used for the inflationary cost of salaries and benefits. The additional $1.0 million in program funds would be used to provide cost-effective critical assistance to Pennsylvania’s agriculture sector to operationalize new federal food safety regulations.

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was passed into law and will be enacted in the near future. It enables the FDA to focus more on preventing food safety problems rather than relying primarily on reacting to problems as they occur. This law provides the FDA with enforcement authority. The new regulations emanating from the law will have an impact on all of our fruit and vegetable producers, brokers, and packing facilities. There is a section of the law that will also impact the feed industry and it applies to facilities that manufacture, process, pack or hold animal food.

After increased operating costs are addressed, additional programming funds would be used to hire faculty positions in the area of food safety and extension educators to work with the agricultural industry to operationalize cutting edge food safety practices.

Cost Containment and Internal Reallocations

The annual cost increases for an institution with the size and scope of Penn State far exceed the amount of new funds derived from a moderate tuition increase. Therefore, we must continue on the path of aggressive cost containment and internal reallocations to balance the budget rather than pass along all of the cost increases to our students. Our budget plan includes funds made available in the operating budget from restructuring our post-retirement health care liability, funds set aside in anticipation of the spike in the State Employees’ Retirement System employer contribution rate, and other targeted administrative budget reallocations. We also hope to see a decrease in the estimate for the incremental cost of health care when new information becomes available about the impact of changes to our plan design including the introduction in 2014 of a high-deductible health care plan.