By James Bell
Hays Post

During Thursday proceedings at the Kansas Board of Regents meeting in Topeka the regents approved for submission to Gov. Sam Brownback, an increase of $28.85 million in the 2017 Unified State Appropriations request. Fort Hays State University would receive nearly $2.2 million of the increase for initiatives to increase retention and graduation rates.

Seven schools’ priorities were included in the request with the largest amount requested for Kansas State University at $5 million for support in Geosciences.

The regents also approved seven other requests for future consideration in fiscal year 2017, none of those requests, however, included FHSU.

Other requests in the appropriations measure include $2 million for the Wichita State University to establish a department of Chemical & Materials Engineering program, $3.5 million for the University of Kansas’ Integrated Science buildings, $3.4 million for merit-based salary increases at KU Medical Center, $500,000 to establish state funding for Emporia State University’s Department of Nursing and $1.5 million to create a School of Transportation at Pittsburg State University.

Supplemental requests include $8.3 million to close the gap in the tiered technical education formula, $2.2 for the excel in CTE initiative, $178,000 for office space and the annual state commitment increase of $20,000 to the Midwestern Higher Education Compact.