Under direction from the Board of Regents, budget officers at the University took their stimulus money and ran – expending every penny of the federal support during the months of July and August.

For fiscal year 2010, the University received about $19.2 million from the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund, part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

Officials spent all of the money on personnel expenses, in accordance with a mandate from the Board of Regents, said Ryan Nesbit, senior associate vice president for finance and administration.

But the money wasn’t a simple added bonus.

Knowing the stimulus money was coming, the Board of Regents cut its allocations to the University by an amount equal to the federal funding. The personnel costs would have been paid by the state if the stimulus money had not been available.

“If it weren’t for the stabilization funds, we would have had to identify other funds to pay those expenses,” Nesbit said, “which could have resulted in additional furlough days or potential layoffs.”

more severe budget cuts through larger class sizes or a reduced number of course sections, he said.

“By having the stimulus funds, and being able to use those funds to pay for personnel costs, that enabled us not to have to reduce our budget by that amount,” he said.

The University of Florida took a different approach with its $41 million stimulus package.

UF will use about $10 million of the stimulus money to hire up to 100 new faculty members, said Steve Orlando, a spokesman for the university.

But when the stimulus dollars run out, UF students will have to take up the costs of the additional hires.

“Our institution is using stimulus dollars as a bridge until the increase in tuition that just got approved kicks in,” Orlando said in a phone interview last week.

UF will increase in-state tuition 15 percent yearly until it reaches the national average, Orlando said. UF’s in-state tuition is significantly less expensive than it is at similar schools.

Other universities in the Southeast are using their stimulus money for short-term expenditures, recognizing that the funds are not permanent fixtures.

At the University of South Carolina, the money will go toward improving research equipment, upgrading labs, and hiring research and graduate associates, said Margaret Lamb, a spokeswoman for the school.

The Columbia campus received $24 million in-state stabilization funds.

“We’ve been very, very careful to urge people to remember that this will be a one-time expenditure,” Lamb said. “It wouldn’t be used to hire full time faculty.”

The University of Arkansas will use its $4 million in stimulus money to upgrade elevators and repair roofs on campus, said Steve Voorhies, a spokesman for the school.

“The work needed to be done, and this money was available for that,” Voorhies said. “We are in the middle of getting at long overdue maintenance and upkeep for buildings.”

The University of Mississippi’s stimulus money is $6 million.

The money will be used for “operational expenses that meet the requirements set out by the feds,” said Larry Sparks, the university’s vice chancellor for administration and finance.

These expenses could include hiring non-permanent instructors, making purchases for the library or supporting scholarships.

“The money helps mitigate tuition increases for incoming students,” Sparks said in a phone interview last week.

All of these funds are separate and distinct from the stimulus money universities are receiving through a competitive grant process, said Regina Smith, associate vice president for research at the University.

As of Monday, the University has submitted 220 grant proposals for Recovery Act funding and received about $15.7 million.

Projects include a $1.7 million effort to reduce the pollution coming from diesel vehicles and a $185,000 study examining the effect of cocaine abuse on the brain.

Though the grants don’t directly provide money to offset cuts to the University’s state funding, they can still lessen the effects of the budget shortfall.

“What grants do is allow faculty to have funds, that the state can’t provide, to spend finding out answers to important questions,” Smith said. “And that’s why we’re here – understanding the nature of things and why the world works the way it does.”