Sparks fly as UTRGV Medical School receives $1 million

The McAllen City Commission awarded UTRGV’s Medical School $1 million during its meeting on Monday.

City commissioners argued as a decision was reached to amend the budget. District 5 Commissioner John Ingram and District 2 Commissioner Joaquin Zamora voted against the budget amendment. Several of the university’s faculty and staff were present at the meeting.

The amendment authorizes the City of McAllen to give the funds to UTRGV. Before being approved, the change in budget received stern opposition. Ingram said that awarding UTRGV the funds would not benefit the city. 

“The UTRGV Medical School is not engaged in McAllen,” Ingram said. “They’re perceived to be, and they really are, an Edinburg university. One million dollars is only a drop in UTRGV’s budget.”

Zamora presented an additional perspective when he said that supporting the school is important. However, he also said that the funds available to the city must be used conservatively. 

“You can never lose with investment in education,” he said. “I also have a duty to the citizens of this city to make sure and preserve our economic future.”

District 1 Commissioner Richard Cortez countered that the city has a duty to support the new school of medicine.

“You do not solve budgetary problems by simply cutting expenses,” Cortez said. “You solve budgetary problems by growing revenues. We have an opportunity to make the best investment available to us today, in a medical school. It doesn’t matter to me where it’s located, because we are a region and we benefit from that region. I can tell you that if we depended solely on McAllen citizens to build our $250 million in the bank and all the assets that we have, we wouldn’t get there.”

After the exchange of opinions, Mayor Jim Darling called for a vote on the proposal. UTRGV President Guy Bailey and School of Medicine Dean John Krouse were in attendance as the commission supported the proposed allocation of funds.

Krouse said the help received from the city will not only benefit in the development of the school, but it will also profit McAllen.

“Our annual budget for the School of Medicine is $100 million, so when the commissioner tries to trivialize that he doesn’t understand the importance that to our School of Medicine a million dollars is 1 percent of our budget,” he said. “That will allow us to hire the researchers that will populate the research building that they are talking about. It will allow us to continue to bring in the faculty to expand the programs that we have. It will allow us to bring more people into the City of McAllen.”