The Board of Regents, the 17-member panel that sets higher education policy and oversees the state's nine public colleges and universities, would have a more rural flavor under a bill that has passed both houses of the Legislature.
SB52 requires the governor, who makes all Regent appointments subject to Senate confirmation, to ensure at least two members reside in non-metropolitan counties. Now all but one of the Regents are from "urban" counties; the exception is a California entrepreneur living in Midway.
Bill sponsor Sen. Dennis Stowell, R-Parowan, said rural lawmakers would never have agreed to creating the Utah System of Higher Education in 1969 had they known its governing authority would become so concentrated on the Wasatch Front.
"The rural areas depend on education just as much as their urban counterparts, perhaps more," Stowell told the Senate Education Committee. "People living in rural Utah do not have as ready access to colleges and universities. While urban residents, more often than not, can commute from their home to school, rural residents must move to where the colleges are. Rural people who have less money have to pay more."
The bill received a chilly reception in the House, where it was criticized on both sides but ultimately passed Wednesday on a 44-28 vote.
One lawmaker was disappointed the bill didn't eliminate the Board of Regents.
"This bill just perpetuates a regime of central planning, which is rigid and inflexible and does not serve our state well," said Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland. "We need to respond quicker to changing market dynamics."
A House amendment, advanced by Rep. Curt Webb, R-Logan, did go further, ensuring no more than six residents of any one county sit on the board. The amendment is aimed at limiting the influence of Salt Lake County, Utah's most populous, which lists seven residents among the Regents. That's about in line with Salt Lake County's share of the state's population, but where Regents live shouldn't matter, officials say.
"The governor wanted the members to have a statewide perspective rather than have a particular constituency," said David Buhler, associate commission of higher education for public affairs.
The Regents have no position on the meat of Stowell's measure, but they do object to a last-minute add-on to the House version that would approve an electronics engineering program at Weber State University. The move is seen as a legislative end-run.
"The Board of Regents board is better equipped to evaluate program proposals," Buhler said. The Regents only received the Weber proposal in late February.
"We promised to deal with it in an open, expeditious manner," he said. "There is a wrong way and right way to do things. This is the wrong way."
