While universities across Texas flinch at the prospect of having their budgets slashed, the fledgling four-year medical school here in El Paso faces a proposal that targets its budget with cuts that are three times as deep.

“We are stuck with deep, deep cuts, unless we are able to convince the state Legislature that we are in a unique situation,” Dr. Jose Manuel de la Rosa, dean of Texas Tech’s Paul L. Foster School of Medicine, told El Paso Inc. “We will have to make some very tragic choices if we don’t receive relief from the proposed House Bill 1.”

Because the Foster med school has not yet graduated its first class – that will happen in a couple of years –it is not eligible for formula funding. That’s how most public universities in Texas are funding, along with tuition and fees paid by students.

Instead, the med school is funded by several special line items in the state budget, de la Rosa says, that add up to just under $40 million. That area of the budget is particularly vulnerable, he says, and the proposed bill cuts it by 30 percent.

Like other state institutions, Texas Tech had already trimmed its budget by 7.5 percent.

That cut translates to a $13 million drop in funding, and that translates to losing 33 faculty and researcher positions out of 210, according to de la Rosa. Or having 99 staff positions slashed out of 1,300.

“That would be devastating, not just for Texas Tech, but also for the region,” says Emma Schwartz, president of the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation.

The foundation heads up the development of a campus of medical facilities in El Paso that includes the medical school.

“We would get the reputation of pulling people out of their situations to commit here just to let them go. That would impede our ability to recruit quality faculty and researchers to the region,” Schwartz says.

Med school officials went into the current legislative session hoping for funds to construct a third building.

They were also hoping for a sort of pediatric pavilion or clinic space that would house researchers and physicians who will practice at the new Children’s Hospital, when it is completed in about a year, next to University Medical Center.

“We will keep that wish list in our legislators’ faces because we don’t want them to forget it, but first and foremost, is maintaining what we have now,” Schwartz said.

The Texas Legislature is in the very early stages of forming the budget, and de la Rosa says he hopes it will end well. He spent a recent week in Austin pleading on behalf of the med school.

“We got some pretty grim assessments as well as the observation that this is only a starting point,” he says.

During the presentation, de la Rosa says some legislators were surprised by the school’s plight, some arched eyebrows and others aimed questioning looks at staffers.

State Rep. Dee Margo, R-El Paso, said he was not prepared to comment on the issue last week, since the House subcommittee that handles the medical school has not testified before the House Appropriations Committee. Margo was recently appointed to serve on Appropriations.

But a Margo spokesperson told El Paso Inc., “He does want to protect the operating budget of the medical school and consider a tuition revenue bond.”

Because the medical school is still relatively small, cuts are a more difficult proposition.

With fewer than 100 students, de la Rosa says, raising tuition would not go very far toward making up the potential $13 million cut.

The school’s faculty members are required to practice, as part of the med school’s faculty practice plan. Proceeds from that can help offset the schools costs, according to de la Rosa. Increasing that revenue might normally be an option, but not in El Paso, where the patient population tends to be poorer.

De la Rosa says that more than 65 percent of the patients they see are insured by Medicaid, which the legislature has also proposed cutting. And many El Paso doctors say Medicaid already does not reimburse them for what it costs to render their services.

With private investment hard to come by during an economic downturn, that leaves the cuts.

Schwartz with the Medical Center of the Americas Foundation says that she and a group of El Paso’s heavy hitters will be in Austin this week to speak on behalf of the med school.

“Rick Francis, Woody Hunt, Robert Brown, Paul Foster are constantly fighting to get El Paso its fair share to improve our education system and economy,” Schwartz said.

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