Despite the Colorado Senate and House of Representatives passing a bill allocating approximately $400,000 to UCCS’ cybersecurity program, UCCS may not receive the funding.
According to the Colorado Republican Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, the bill passed both chambers, but the anticipated session budget fell $1.2 billion short. Representatives looked at reallocating funding from the Department of Corrections that was believed to be recreational; however, after investigation, it was discovered a reallocation would potentially affect full-time employees at the Department of Corrections.
Pugliese proposed the bill to continue funding cybersecurity education and the training of the future’s workforce at UCCS.
UCCS has been the National Security Agency Center of Academic Excellence for Cybersecurity since 2012. In 2016, UCCS was established as the National Cyber Intelligence center to respond to cyber-attacks, according to previous reporting by Communique.
UCCS’ National Cybersecurity Center’s (NCC) will be limited without the funding, according to Chairman Kyle Hybl.
“[The NCC] can engage less robustly now with its activities if it doesn’t get the dollars. It could be not hiring certain positions as quickly as one may want. It may be not pursuing activities we had planned to pursue,” Hybl said.
The bill was moved to the Joint Budget Committee to determine if it will get funded.
“While the Joint Budget Committee does not support [the bill], they are still trying to figure out if there is a way to get that funded. I mean, it passed both chambers, so hopefully it should get funded,” Pugliese said.
If the bill is not funded during the session which ends on May 7, Pugliese said it could potentially be funded via the supplemental funding process throughout the rest of the 2025 fiscal year, which ends on June 30. Supplemental funding comes from money that is allocated from different funds so that additional money is available during the fiscal year.
In the case the bill is not funded this fiscal year, Pugliese said she will propose the funding again in future sessions.
“It’s really important that we continue to fund the cybersecurity program. Cybersecurity is such an important issue throughout our country that having a hub right here in El Paso County in Colorado Springs is incredibly important. We have been a real leader, and we want to continue,” Pugliese said.
The UCCS Cybersecurity Building. Photo by Logan Cole.