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Regents OK university budgets with dissent from members seeking details • Iowa Capital Dispatch [1]

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Date: 2025-07-30

As university budgets continue to swell, some members of the Iowa Board of Regents are concerned about a lack of scrutiny into the dollars and what is being done to save them, especially with current uncertainty and future changes to funding streams.

The board approved the fiscal year 2026 budgets Wednesday for the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and University of Northern Iowa, with the expectation of diving into greater detail on individual budgets with university officials in the future.

Regents Christine Hensley and David Barker both voted against approving the budgets, though they said it was not out of distrust for the numbers or the work put into compiling them for the board. Hensley said she wanted to go over things with university chief financial officers to ensure proper oversight.

Barker said he felt there wasn’t enough information provided on risks with certain areas of the budget and contingency plans in case dollars dry up for projects or programs. Despite a past directive from board president Sherry Bates to universities to renew efforts in finding areas where greater efficiency can be attained, Barker said he saw little evidence of it in the budget documents.

“As I’ve said in past meetings, higher education finance is changing quickly and dramatically,” Barker said. “The president is finally taking a much-needed hard look at federal spending, and the Iowa Legislature is focusing on higher education more than it has in 50 years, and that will require changes in how we approach our budget. I do not believe that the budget that’s been presented to us adequately accounts for the risks of changes in federal and state funding.”

University general education budgets grow

General education budgets at Iowa’s public universities are set to grow once again in fiscal year 2026, according to budget reports, mainly due to increases in tuition revenue from both rate hikes and higher expected enrollment. The total budget for the whole regents system sits at $8.4 billion for the fiscal year.

Hensley said Gov. Kim Reynolds spoke with her about the university budgets and said she “was not happy about” the fact that they had a higher percentage increase than the 2% “state approved” increase.

UNI is the only university to report decreased revenue from tuition for the fiscal year, but indirect cost recoveries and other income still have the overall budget rising by $400,000 to $174.4 million.

The UI reported a projected tuition revenue increase of more than $51 million, offset by a reduction of $3.2 million from reductions in federal funding and indirect cost recoveries, bringing its general education funding to $871.2 million.

ISU’s fiscal year 2026 general education budget is projected to total nearly $767 million, with tuition revenue coming in at $44.1 million and revenue from indirect cost recoveries dropping by around $2.7 million due to “federal grant and recovery rate uncertainties.”

Members want more talk of details, risks

While uncertainties from federal actions resulting in possible budgetary changes were mentioned in university budget narratives, Barker said there wasn’t nearly enough analysis of impacts the institutions could see or discussion of risks inherent to budgeting decisions and contingency plans if funding does fall through.

One area Barker said did go into adequate detail about the future and the problems it poses was ISU’s athletic department budget. In the budget proposal, the university stated it expects to see around $30 million in “recurring annual financial repercussions” starting this year and continuing in years to come. The university foundation provided a one-time allocation of funds to the department to fill gaps this year, but the document stated this will not be viable in the future.

Barker may leave board Wednesday’s Board of Regents meeting might be Regent David Barker’s last, he told the board. Barker was nominated in May for the assistant secretary for postsecondary education position by President Donald Trump, and is still waiting for confirmation before he can assume the role. He may need to step down from the Board of Regents if confirmed then directed to do so by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, he said. Barker said the confirmation might be a while off yet, so he could still participate in future meetings, but he doesn’t know for sure. He said he both loves and appreciates each of the public universities, as someone who attended and taught at the UI, and whose father attended UNI and grandmother attended ISU. “There’s so many wonderful things that happen at these institutions, and there’s a lot of good that they do for Iowa, and I think that this board has a very important role to play in the oversight of those institutions,” Barker said. “And I’ve enjoyed and appreciated every minute of my time on the board.”

“We need more frank discussion like this in the budget,” Barker said.

Barker added during the meeting that after he voted no on a capital project presented by the UI to renovate its memorial union, Bates removed him from the board’s executive and property and facilities committees and did not allow him to join the advisory council for the UI Center for Intellectual Freedom, despite there being a regent space empty.

Hensley said she was disappointed in the budget formation process as a regent going through it for the first time, with no discussions of the budgets taking place during investment and finance committee meetings and no exposure to the budget beyond approved tuition and campus residence rates before the documents were released to the public. There were also no actuals included in the documents, Hensley said, so she was unable to tell whether budgets were overspent or underspent in the past and where funding is actually at now.

She proposed the board put off approval of the budget until a future meeting, after members have had the chance to meet with financial officers and others involved in the budget process and can say with confidence they support it.

“How can I sit here and say I really have done my job, because I haven’t,” Hensley said. “I really don’t know how any regent can sit here and say that, because you have not had the opportunity to really sit down with the CFOs and whoever else is appropriate to have some good in-depth discussion.”

Regents who voted to approve the budgets said they agreed with the points made by their fellow members, but thought it was important to get something approved and come back later with amendments if need be.

Regent Nancy Dunkel suggested forming an advisory group similar to the one she participated in during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic that looked at efficiencies and other matters in order to prepare for situations they weren’t sure of yet at the time, saying uncertainties found now are comparable to what was dealt with back then.

A motion carried by Regent Robert Cramer and approved by the board will have the board’s investment finance committee meet within the next month to take another look at the budgets and come up with recommendations for how the process could change.

“I think David’s comments about risks and sensitivity are absolutely critical, and that should be addressed, and I think it could be at a future meeting, and I agree with Regent Hensley about a need for a process change going forward and doing that,” Regent Kurt Tjaden said. “But I can go either way on this, because I don’t think the numbers are going to change … for this year.”

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[1] Url: https://iowacapitaldispatch.com/2025/07/30/regents-ok-university-budgets-with-dissent-from-members-seeking-details/

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