Governor Pat Quinn’s proposed Fiscal 2014 state budget would eliminate funding for Southern Illinois University’s school of pharmacy in Edwardsville.
The program received about $1.2-million in state grant funding this fiscal year. Next year’s budget would zero-out the line item. The cut to the pharmacy school would be in addition to the overall reduction in state university funding that the governor is recommending.
The State Department of Financial and Professional Regulation says the cut is to all three of the state's pharmacy schools that receive funding from licensing fees paid by pharmacists and other licensed professionals. Agency spokesperson Sue Hofer says the Pharmacy Fund and the General Professions Fund provide grants to the pharmacy schools at Chicago State University, University of Illinois-Rockford and SIU-Edwardsville. Hofer says fees from those funds are no longer able to support the grants. Hofer says the department would have to double licensing fees for pharmacists in order to continue funding the training grants and enforce professional regulations. Hofer says the department believes it would be better to fund the pharmacy schools through the state's higher education appropriation. This fiscal year the grant provided $500,000 to the University of Illinois School of Pharmacy in Rockford and $307,000 to the pharmacy program at Chicago State University.
State Senator Bill Haine says the cut is shocking and he wonders what the governor is doing. The Alton Democrat says the pharmacy school at SIU-E is providing great value to taxpayers. He says he will work to restore the cuts. Retired down-state senator and pharmacist Frank Watson of Greenville lead a bipartisan effort to establish the SIU-E Pharmacy program in 2005. It’s the only school of pharmacy in the state outside of Chicago.
