Arizona Water Institute Loses Funding
As many of you are aware, the Arizona State budget for this year (2009) contains $140 million in cuts to the university system, with even more reductions anticipated for 2010. The magnitude of these cuts makes it impossible for the universities to continue all of their current programs. You may also be aware that the legislature recommended eliminating funding for the Arizona Water Institute (AWI) as part of this budget cut, though AWI was technically part of the university base budget. The decision was made in early February '09 that AWI will be shut down by July 1, 2009 at the latest. Some of the projects that were approved for this year will move forward, but most will not — and all of the funding from this fiscal year that remains will be returned to the state to help make up the deficit.
AWI staff continue to believe that what we were doing was unique and an important contribution to water management, education of students in real-world applications, and the economy of the state. We have been successfully bridging the gap between the universities and decision-makers at the local, state, federal and tribal levels. We have built important relationships between researchers at the three universities, and facilitated over 100 project partnerships with public and private sector interests. We now have a series of two-page summaries for many of the completed projects and we had been looking forward to implementing a stellar set of new projects for this year, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in external funding to match the state’s contributions.
Thank you for your interest in the Arizona Water Institute. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact us. This website will be maintained at least until July 1, but we are working on longer-term plans as well.
Click here or here to view newspaper articles about AWI's closure.