The Tennessee Board of Regents Committee on Finance and Business Operations will meet Thursday to continue its discussion of student fee requests by TBR colleges and universities and a draft policy on how TBR will consider university budgets under the FOCUS Act.
The committee will meet by telephone conference call at 3 p.m. CST. It has no action items or votes scheduled on the agenda, but rather will discuss items that the committee will act on later.
The Finance and Business Operations Committee annually reviews requests for new and increases in existing student fees by TBR institutions.
The discussion for fee requests for the next academic year opened with a telephone meeting of the committee on Feb. 7, and will continue Thursday and in future meetings not yet scheduled. All new fees and fee increases for TBR colleges must ultimately be approved by the board of regents.
Discussion items on the agenda include:
• Overview of institutions’ mandatory and incidental fee requests; and
• Draft policy on “Consideration of University Budgets.”
The FOCUS (Focus on College and University Success) Act of 2016 creates new governing boards for each of the six current TBR universities. Although the new boards, which are expected to convene for the first time in March or April, which will approve budgets for their campuses, the FOCUS Act also requires the Board of Regents to continue to review and approve budgets for the universities for the limited purpose of ensuring that each university can appropriately cover outstanding indebtedness. The draft policy will outline procedures for reviewing and approving the university budgets.
The meeting is open to the public. Anyone wishing to join the conference call as listeners should contact TBR interim communications director Richard Locker at 615-366-4417 or rick.locker@tbr.edu by 11 a.m. CST Feb. 23 for call-in information. Persons with disabilities who wish to listen but require special services to do so should also contact Mr. Locker by 4:30 p.m. CST Feb. 22 to request services.