USU given its full funding back at last

SALT LAKE CITY — The Utah Legislature’s Executive Appropriations Committee voted to give full funding back to Utah State University after a recent audit looked into the spending of the past president and the university as a whole.

The committee agreed to return full funding to the school Wednesday night, after approving USU’s reinvestment plan and reviewing a spending audit. 

Recently inaugurated USU President Brad Mortensen said the university agreed to follow all recommendations before the committee voted to give funds back to USU, including having the board of trustees approve the president’s spending.

The recommendation to have USU’s president spending approved came after an audit revealed former USU President Elizabeth Cantwell spent at least $660,000 in university funds for personal projects and benefits.

“That does allow me to kind of operate in a way where I don’t have to worry if there’s scrutiny or anything,” Mortensen said. “I can just be very transparent and follow those policies. And that will allow me to do the things that a president should do in terms of advocating for the university and making sure that we’re serving our students.”

A long time coming

The university had presented its reinvestment plan four times after all of Utah’s institutions lost their funds when the legislature withheld funding due to HB265 in September 2025.

At that time, lawmakers had voted to move funding forward for all of Utah’s public universities, except for USU.

“Utah State’s plan was held up then to wait for the new president to be selected and to be able to review the plan and make any changes,” Mortensen said. “So when I started on Nov. 10, we did that process.”

Mortensen said the legislature partially approved the school’s plans, releasing 30% funding to the school in December 2025. Finally, Mortensen said, the school got a call on Wednesday with good news.

“We got the good news that the outstanding 70% of our strategic reinvestment funds would be approved,” Mortensen said.

Mortensen said the school also made several changes to its reinvestment plan, including increasing allocations for artificial intelligence and reducing investments into nursing.

“There’s a lot of excitement at USU,” Mortensen said. “I mean, this has been a bit of a difficult chapter with some of the leadership churn and having to go through the audit and not getting the reinvestment plan back on the first try. But there’s so much energy and excitement for on campus and amongst the Aggie family, our alumni community for Utah State to be successful.”

In a news release, Mortensen said a town hall was set for March 6 at the Eccles Conference Center auditorium at 2:30 p.m., where he is expected to present a legislative update and answer questions.

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