President Eighmy provides updates following 89th Texas Legislative session

JUNE 30, 2025 — Editor's note: The following message was sent via email from UTSA President and UT Health San Antonio Acting President Taylor Eighmy to all faculty and staff. 

The 89th Texas Legislative regular session has concluded, allowing me the opportunity to update you about the session and matters that will impact us, particularly around the state budget passed by Senate Bill 1 and signed into law by Governor Abbott.

This session was unique given our pending formal merger with UT Health San Antonio on September 1, 2025. As such, I had the opportunity to advocate for both institutions and want to express my deep gratitude for the work of our governmental relations teams at UTSA, UT Health San Antonio and The University of Texas System. Alongside their counterparts at UT System, our colleagues advocated for our communities, higher education and health-related matters. From UTSA, I’d especially like to thank Jason Hassay, Albert Carrisalez and Carlos Martinez, and from UT Health San Antonio, I’d like to thank Gilbert Loredo, Pete Arguello, Jaymie Mangelsdorf and Hilda Lopez.

I’m also grateful to Executive Vice President for Business Affairs and Chief Enterprise Development Officer Veronica Salazar and her colleague Vice President for Financial Affairs and CFO Sheri Hardison, who worked with the Office of Budget & Financial Planning team and many UTSA subject matter experts to respond to more than 417 fiscal note inquiries from UT System regarding proposed legislation over the course of the session.

Appropriated General and Supplemental Funding

The budget for the next biennium reflects an increase of roughly $61.9M in appropriations and supplemental funding, bringing our biennial allocation to $325M. While this increase is notable, it is largely driven by one-time funding and does not represent a significant permanent increase to our base budget. Further details are provided below.

• Formula Funding: While our weighted semester credit hour production was up, our net formula increase was only $3.6M over the biennium. The state formula calculations unexpectedly increased allocations to statutory tuition financing that did not create a net funding increase supporting our Education and General (E&G) budget for FY26. This impact, along with ongoing developments at the federal level that were shared recently and continue to evolve, affirm our fiscal prudence as shared last week in our FY26 budget update. 
• National Research Support Fund: This appropriation increased $9.3M over the biennium with resources specifically tied to being one of the state's emerging research universities. 
• Texas Research Incentive Program: The TRIP program has ended, and the backlog of state matches to gifts for research we obtained was appropriated. We anticipate receiving nearly $49M in one-time funding. These dollars are committed as articulated in donor-specific research gift agreements.

Other Special Items

We worked to realize an investment in our UTSA and UT Health San Antonio joint School of Public Health. This effort carried over from efforts in prior sessions, and we were able to secure a one-time appropriation of $10M to be used for start-up costs. This investment matches similar investments made by Bexar County and the City of San Antonio.

We also worked to advance numerous UTSA-specific, non-formula funded or exceptional items, including the new College of AI, Cyber and Computing, SALSI, Texas Demographic Center and the Small Business Development Center. Two of our efforts made it into Article 11 for consideration by the Budget Conferees. While these efforts were ultimately not successful, all non-formula funded items maintained their funding from the 2024-25 biennium levels.

Legislation of Interest

• HB 150 Texas Cyber Command: This authorizes a new state agency affiliated with UTSA to be located in San Antonio.
• SB 5 Dementia Prevention Research Institute of Texas: This legislation will provide $3B for Texas researchers to work on dementia prevention and cures. Citizens of Texas will have to approve a constitutional amendment in November to provide the funding.
• HB 5196 Telework: This authorizes administrative heads to permit teleworking at state agencies. UT System will provide further guidance on this legislation, and we will share more information as we work to bring a strategy forward to be compliant.
• SB 2615 Related to Restricting Telework for Employees of Public Institutions of Higher Education: Provides a specific framework for telework. UT System will also provide further guidance on this legislation. Again, you can expect more details from leadership as we work to bring a strategy forward to be compliant.
• SB 2972 Related to expressive activities at public institutions of higher education: This refines recent legislation around permissible and impermissible expressive activities. UT System will provide further guidance on this, and we will share more as we learn more.
• SB 37 Related to the governance of public institutions of higher education. UT System will provide further guidance on this legislation, and we will share more information as we work to bring a strategy forward to be compliant.
• HB 126 Compensation and representation of student athletes: NIL bill to align Texas statute with the House vs NCAA decision.
• HB 127 establishes the Higher Education Research Security Council and regulates gifts and donations to higher education institutions from foreign adversaries.
• SB 1964 establishes a system of governance over AI systems by state agencies, including institutions of higher education.

Beyond those outlined above, there are several other pieces of legislation that have been passed, which will impact various components of university operations. To ensure compliance, university leadership will work directly with relevant departments. 

Also of note, the governor has called for a Special Legislative Session to begin on July 21 and last 30 days. The Special Session will have a limited scope to just the issues the governor enumerates, and we will continue to monitor should there be a potential impact on our university operations.

Lastly, I’d like to reiterate that the entire San Antonio legislative delegation were strong advocates for our priorities. I am deeply appreciative to them for supporting so many programs that are vital to our ongoing success. In the Senate, our delegation includes Senators Campbell, Flores, Gutierrez, Menéndez and Dean Zaffirini. Our delegation in the House includes Representatives Bernal, Campos, Cortez, Dorazio, Garcia, Gervin-Hawkins, LaHood, Lopez, Lujan and Martinez-Fischer.

I’d like to thank each of you for what you do to make our institution so special. As this legislative session affirms, we have a bright future — one shaped by our continued collaboration, the strength of our advocacy, and the far-reaching impact we make through education, research and service to our communities.

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