Texas Exes Launch Campaign for UT-Austin Med School
The 127-year wait for a medical school may be over. But only if Travis County voters approve Proposition 1.
A political compromise in 1881 established The University of Texas in Austin, the sleepy capital city, and a medical branch in Galveston, then the state’s economic powerhouse.
Times have changed, and now the dynamic, global city of Austin and its flagship university are looking to advance higher education excellence through a proposed medical school and teaching hospital at UT-Austin.
UT-Austin alumni are weighing in. The Texas Exes, a 99,000-member organization, rarely wades into political campaigns. In its history, the Association has endorsed only eight ballot initiatives. This campaign is the first the Association has endorsed that is not statewide.
In July, the Texas Exes board of directors voted unanimously to endorse the measure, launching a campaign called UT M.D. aimed at educating the public about Proposition 1 in Travis County, a bond initiative designed to raise revenue to establish a medical school at UT-Austin.
The increase, from 7 to 12 cents per $100 in property taxes, is close to half of what most Texas hospital districts incur, former Austin city councilwoman Beverly Dunkerly noted at a community meeting in Oak Hill last month.
This revenue represents 10 percent of the cost of establishing a long-needed medical school. “That is a 9-to-1 return on our local community investment,” a group of prominent supporters wrote in the Austin American Statesman. “[It is] a phenomenal payoff that also helps keep us healthy. It doesn’t even count the 15,000 permanent new jobs (more than half of them not requiring a college degree) and $2 billion in annual economic activity that Austin’s transformed health care system will spur.”
The UT System board of regents has allocated $30 million for eight years to finance the medical school, and $25 million per year after that. Seton Healthcare will fund $250 million to construct a new teaching hospital, replacing the current University Medical Center Brackenridge.
Proposition 1 will fund up to $50 million dollars annually to support the medical school, as well as the teaching hospital and community clinics to support physician training and residency. For five years, every dollar raised locally will be matched by $1.46 federal dollars.
“The Texas Exes have a unique love for their university and a strong sense of how transformative a medical school could be,” state senator and proponent Kirk Watson told the Daily Texan on Wednesday. “Proposition 1 will cement a new, vital partnership to help keep Austin and Central Texas healthy, and the Texas Exes’ historic support shows how important that is. The medical school needs this funding source, just as Travis County families and individuals need these services.”
Alongside the Texas Exes, groups from across central Texas have endorsed the initiative, including the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, the Austin Travis County EMS Association, Lance Armstrong Foundation, Downtown Austin Alliance, and Real Estate Council of Austin. More than 400 Austin-area physicians have voiced their support as well.
Community support for Proposition 1 comes from a broad spectrum of demographic and economic interests. At a news conference held by Keep Austin Healthy Thursday morning, a number of community leaders, led by former state legislator Ann Kitchen, focused on the medical school’s potential impact on women’s health.
“This proposition has so much support in this community,” said Juanita Stevens of BiG AUSTIN, a group that supports local small business owners. Stevens stressed the importance of increased access to care from the proposed teaching hospital and clinics.
The Texas Exes view this as a transformative opportunity for UT-Austin.
“Of the nation’s top 15 public universities, UT-Austin is one of just four without a medical school,” says Texas president John Beckworth, who lives in Houston. “Building a medical school could give our alma mater one of the final assets needed to catch and even pull ahead of our competitor schools.”
Find out more about the UT M.D. campaign here or follow it on Twitter.
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6 Comments
Why is the wealthiest public university on the planet applying for welfare from local homeowners? Does UT pay for improvements to our houses? Nope! They have $8 Billion sitting in their endowment, so maybe they should use that rather than lying to homeowners about how a medical school will benefit them. Just think, the $250 million the athletic department spent to expand the empty football stadium could have bought that new teaching hospital. Sounds to me like somebody has their priorities way out of whack. NO ON PROP. 1
It’s because it’s an investment – the taxes are offset by job creation and other positive net economic impacts. But if Austin doesn’t want these benefits, then maybe UT can place the med school in any of the other countless other cities that would offer UT tax benefits in a heartbeat to get a med school placed in their backyard. Why do you think Dell is in Round Rock?
The $250 million for the football stadium expansion has or will be paid many times over. I don’t understand why so many people can’t grasp this, but killing UT athletics would increase tuition, decrease the amount being spent on research, etc. So capitol expenditures related to increasing attendance at UT athletic events is a no-brainer.
You can bet that having a med school nearby will increase property values. I’d call that “an improvement to your house”. A very slight tax increase means you are merely paying your share.
Finally, I’m don’t think you understand how an endowment works. You don’t pull $250 million out all at once to fund construction. In an $8 billion endowment, you’re probably pulling only a little more than $250 million/yr TOTAL to go toward ALL of a university’s operations.
@Former UT Employee UT isn’t asking for welfare. It’s putting up $30 million a year for the med school. Central Health is asking for money from Travis County people to pay for the care that already happens but in emergency rooms. Instead of taxpayers paying for the most expensive type of care, this mechanism would allow the teaching hospital and associated clinics to give that care better and more often so that fewer people wind up in emergency rooms. It’s not welfare–it’s smart financial planning.
As a public institution, every dollar UT has ever had came from the people of the State of Texas, and has been spent on their behalf. That isn’t welfare, it is the basic model of public higher education.
UT Medical Center will exist as a partnership between Austin, UT, and various medical service providers, and will provide a higher volume and quality of affordable care to the people of the region. As with any venture designed to benefit a community, whether it be a convention center, a highway, or a hospital, it is fair to ask the residents of that community to contribute 1/10 of the cost. If you are skeptical of the benefit a world-class teaching hospital will have on the City of Austin and its residents, by all means, vote against Prop. 1. However, I don’t think many will find your arguments persuasive.
I don’t know where you people have been living but UT does have a medical school! It’s in Galveston! UT Medical Branch in Galveston – UTMB. It’s not even mentioned. Do the people in the Alumni Center ever leave Austin?
Those medical schools do not directly serve the city of Austin. A significant percentage of people usually stay to practice in the city that they go to med school in. The idea is to have a medical school in Austin that provides services to our community and that produces physicians that stay to serve the community! I am sure the people in the Alumni Center left Austin and saw the great things that having a medical school has done in Galveston and Houston and they were smart enough to want to fight for having a medical school here in Travis County!