The Galveston County Daily News

University of Texas Medical Branch faculty, residents and students stood and cheered as Gov. Rick Perry signed a bill giving the institution $150 million in recovery funds.

Perry traveled to the island to sign the legislation in Levin Hall, flanked by University of Texas System regents, island legislators and local officials.

On Wednesday, Perry also signed a bill authorizing $150 million in tuition revenue bonds, which the medical branch plans to use to build a new 200-bed tower next to John Sealy Hospital. Once the tower is built, the medical branch will be back to the 550-bed capacity it had before Hurricane Ike flooded the campus and left $710 million in physical damage and revenue losses.

The new construction funding is contingent on the formation of a taxing district or some other form of local funding.

Now it’s up to the people of Galveston to do their part to ensure the medical branch’s continued success, Perry said.

“I know the people of the island are very grateful to a state that saved their major employer,” he said. “If I know the people of this island, I suspect they will be willing to respond appropriately and as fully as they can.”

Perry said he didn’t know how much local funding was appropriate. Local officials know better what size the taxing district should be and how much area residents could contribute, he said.

Standing in front of a crowd waving small white flags with the medical branch logo, Perry said the bills passed by the legislature proved state lawmakers understood how important it was to bring the medical branch back to an even better level than it was before.

But they probably wouldn’t have done anything without the hard work and doggedness of Reps. Craig Eiland, D–Galveston, and Larry Taylor, R–Friendswood, Perry said.

Although the two men were not close before Hurricane Ike, Eiland said he spent so much time in Perry’s office during the session that he now had his own chair, right next to the governor’s desk. He even started going to church with Perry in Austin so he could talk to him about legislation after the service, Eiland said, earning another round of applause from the audience.

Dr. David Callender, medical branch president, promised Perry he and his staff would be good stewards of the funds the legislature had entrusted to them.

The state’s 2-year budget includes $566.5 million in general revenue funding for the medical branch, about $109 million more than the previous biennium.

Hurricane Ike is generally referred to as the storm that almost killed the medical branch, but it had a silver lining, Callender said.

“It has created a remarkable and expanded realization of the contribution we make to the state and this community,” he said.

Throughout the last nine months, the medical branch has remained true to the motto that has served it well for more than a century — “UTMB stops for no storm,” Callender said.

While in Galveston, Perry also signed legislation reorganizing the Texas Windstorm Insurance Association. The funding reforms will ensure another major storm cannot bankrupt the state, Perry said. The association is the insurer of last resort for many coastal property owners.