An aerial photo of Kansas University’s campus as it looks in August 2015.

The Kansas Legislature’s latest plan for budget restrictions on Kansas University should not significantly affect KU operations other than the Central District redevelopment project, according to a KU official.

The Central District now appears poised to move forward as planned; it will just require additional communication with lawmakers along the way, said Tim Caboni, KU’s vice chancellor for public affairs.

“We have the flexibility to be able to continue the project,” Caboni said. “This is going to require us to continue to work with our legislators … and for them to have oversight.”

On Monday, the Legislature’s budget conference committee agreed on a budget bill for the upcoming year.

Included is language stating that KU can’t spend more special revenue funds than the amount the university originally estimated when it submitted its budget proposal last fall. Examples of such funds are tuition, campus fees, student housing and parking fees.

Additional spending — namely payments to fund the $350 million Central District redevelopment project, a deal finalized only recently and bankrolled by special revenue funds — would require “additional conversations” with the Legislature, Caboni said.

As for what format the required “conversations” and “oversight” will take if the governor ultimately approves the budget bill, Caboni said that’s still unclear. He said KU expects to continue to address lawmakers’ questions.

Caboni said no other KU project was unaccounted for in the earlier budget projections, so the Central District should be the only effort affected by new restrictions.

He said the language excludes grant funds, so KU would still be able to pursue research without legislative tethers, should it receive a large unexpected award. Also, he said, the KU Medical Center campus also is excluded.

KU is counting on a combination of revenue sources — none of which includes state dollars — to make the sublease payments required to finance the Central District redevelopment project, which includes constructing new integrated science buildings and other facilities in the portion of campus west of Naismith Drive.

KU’s average annual sublease payment to the KU Campus Development Corporation will be $21.8 million.

Here is a breakdown of the annual revenue streams KU plans to use for payments, according to Caboni:

• $7.6 million from housing funds generated by occupants of the district’s new residential facilities.

• $6.4 million from tuition dollars raised by projected enrollment growth of international and out-of-state students. Caboni said enrollment growth projections are conservative. The lion’s share of new students are expected to come in through KU’s International Academic Accelerator Program, currently in its second academic year.

• $6.1 million in funds reallocated from savings resulting from KU’s “Changing for Excellence” efficiency initiative.

• $1 million in revenue from the district’s planned new parking facility.

• $800,000 in student fees, allocated by the Student Senate to fund reconstruction of the Burge Union.

Restrictions were sparked by legislators’ anger at KU for forming a separate nonprofit corporation that issued $327 million in out-of-state bonds for the Central District project, a new-to-Kansas-higher-education funding model called a public-private partnership, or P-3, for short. An earlier Senate proposal would have effectively shut down the project.