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March 6, 2003 edition

OUT WITH THE OLD,
IN WITH THE NEW

Terry West, director of forensics, sorts through trophies in the Centrum Arena. With a successful season coming to a close, the forensics team has dozens of new trophies to add to the display case. As a result, some of the older awards were removed to make room and placed in storage.
KEN HANSEN / UNIVERSITY JOURNAL

Higher ed ducks cuts,
but still lacks funding

By KATIE ANDERSON
UNIVERSITY JOURNAL

Whew!
SUU and Utah’s eight other institutions of higher education escaped additional budget cuts as the 2003 Legislative session concluded just before midnight Wednesday.
“The biggest challenge of this session was to preserve what we had, and we did a pretty good job of that,” a relieved SUU President Steven D. Bennion told the Journal late Wednesday.
Legislators had been instructed to cut 2 percent of the higher education budget to balance the state’s budget, said Sen. David Gladwell, R-Dist. 19 and Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee co-chair. The cut amounted to about $11 million.
“We did cut that money from the budget, but we worked hard to get it restored,” Gladwell said.
Rather than cut higher education funding, legislators apppropriated an extra $3.8 million – a 4.7-percent increase – to be divided among three areas. Two-thirds will go to the operations and maintenance of

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new buildings, and the rest will be used for the Utah Educational Network and the governor’s engineering initiative.The $3.8 million in additional funding came from a variety of sources, including part of the state’s portion of the tobacco settlement and a new cable service tax. Gladwell estimated revenue from the cable service tax to be about $18 million.
That money was “put into a pot,” Gladwell said, and legislators dipped into the pot to fund a variety of initiatives, including higher education.
The 4.7-percent increase was surpassed only by the 9.1-percent increase allocated for health and human services programs. All other department budgets in the state were reduced, said Sen. Tom Hatch, R-Dist. 28.
While Utah’s higher education system now has an extra $3.8 million, SUU will not receive much of it, and neither will most other campuses. Bennion said about two-thirds of the money will be used for maintenance and operation of new buildings – of which SUU has none.
SUU participates in the Utah Educational Network and should receive its share of those funds, Bennion said.
“(SUU) may have a chance to get some money with the governor’s engineering initiative,” he added.
If the legislature had approved funds for the proposed teacher education building or for SUU’s nursing program, the university would have received additional revenue. However, neither of those proposals were accepted.
Because SUU escaped the additional budget cut, revenue from next year’s tuition increase will be used as planned – for additional academic advisers, student jobs, summer classes, financial aid and student success courses.
“There may be a few of those priorities that have to wait until we see the fall enrollment,” Bennion said. “There will still be some reductions. Our plan is to minimize the pain and move ahead strategically.”
The money generated by SUU’s 19-percent addition to the state-mandated 4.5-percent tuition increase could have been divided among all of Utah’s higher education institutions. However, legislators decided that additional tuition paid by SUU students should remain at SUU.

Lawmakers
ax funding
of building

By DAVE DeMILLE
UNIVERSITY JOURNAL

In a disappointing reversal of fortunes, SUU administrators learned Wednesday that the state Executive Appropriations Committee had denied funding for the long-promised teacher education building.
Optimism had been high among administrators after the Capital Facilities Appropriation Subcommittee recommended last month a phased-funding effort that would have allocated $63 million to construction projects by providing partial funding for the top 10 projects on the capital facilities list.
Instead, legislators decided to fully fund a new $40 million library at Utah State University and allocate the remaining money to fund several smaller projects on the list.
Dorian Page, SUU associate vice president and legislative liaison, said the plan for phased funding had looked promising in both the House and the Senate after it came out of committee, but Gov. Michael O. Leavitt, a Cedar City native and SUU alumnus, vowed to veto the bill.
“When the phased funding was first introduced, it passed through both,” Page said. “The governor was against it all the way, and they decided they were going to fully fund a few projects.”
Of the $63 million available for capital facilities, $40 million went to the USU library, $8 million to Archives Administration & Permanent Storage, $6.6 million to UVSC for an elementary school land purchase, and $5.8 million to capitol restoration.
Sen. Tom Hatch, R-Dist. 28, had argued that the USU libray

 

could not be built in one year, and that if approximately $20 million was allocated over two years, it would allow for other projects, possibly including the $15 million SUU teacher education building. Hatch said there was anxiety about phased funding because it would commit the Legislature to funding for the next year. Leavitt fought against partial funding for any facilities, he said.
“The governor was adamantly opposed to phased funding,” Hatch said. “So the House took that out and we couldn’t get it back in the Senate.”
SUU administrators had wanted a phased-funding plan that would allocate $9 million for the teacher education building this year, with the remaining $6 million coming next year.
“Nine million dollars would have given us a pretty decent education building,” Page said. “We offered to just take the $9 million, and we would have had a fully funded building.”
Rep. DeMar “Bud” Bowman, R-Dist. 72, said SUU even offered to start with the $9 million this year, and if $6 million wasn’t available in the next session, efforts would be made to raise the extra money through fund-raising.
The teacher education building will be put on hold until the next legislative session, and Bowman, a member of the Capital Facilities Subcommittee, said it was only one of many projects left off the list when the committee decided against phased funding.
“It was taken off the list, as were most of the other buildings,” Bowman said. “I wish I knew why.”
With the USU library off the list, the chances of SUU’s building could improve at the next session, but administrators had been pushing for funds at this session, only to be foiled on the final step.
“There’s a good chance next year,” Bowman said. “Of course, I thought we had a good chance this year.”
The fight for SUU’s teacher education building will continue despite the setback, and Bowman vowed to do whatever necessary to make the planned building a reality as soon as possible.
“I’ve started working already to get support for it for next year,” Bowman added. “I’ll be working 110 percent to get the teacher education building next year.”