CMU looks to receive 10-percent state funding raise

CMU stands to benefit from a 10-percent increase in appropriations after the Higher Education Conference Committee Report for the 2000-01 fiscal year was signed Friday on campus.
Representative Sandy Caul, R-Mount Pleasant and chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education, signed the report along with five other committee members.
The budget report gives CMU $88,542,155 in base funding, up 10 percent from last year's $80,478,312. Appropriations per student total $4,706, a raise from last year's $4,278, and Central is now $106 per student over its basic funding allotment.
In addition, $2,414,349 is planned in the budget for infrastructure, technology, equipment and maintenance costs.
CMU tied with Grand Valley State University for the highest increase percentage in allocations. The fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
"I am elated," University President Leonard Plachta said. "I'm very pleased to see that the issues of fairness and equity that we've raised in recent years with the legislature are taking hold, and I'm very happy for CMU and its students."
"It's a historic bill," Caul said, who became the 99th District Representative in 1998. "We've taken another step to address the inequities in higher-education funding.
"There's been years and years of political allocations versus policy allocations."
The report's budget must still be formally approved by the House and the Senate and signed by Gov. John Engler. Legislators resume work in September.
Joining Caul Friday were conference committee members Sen. John Schwarz, R-Battle Creek, Sen. George McManus, R-Traverse City, Sen. Don Koivisto, D-Iron Mountain, Rep. Hubert Price, D-Pontiac and Rep. Dave Mead, R-Frankfort.
Thirteen of the 15 state universities are now at or above their funding floors, Caul said.
Last year, Caul helped to institute funding floors for peer universities to equalize state funding. This method divides state schools into groups based on similar costs, programs and missions.
CMU is placed in the same tier as schools such as Ferris State University and Eastern Michigan University.
"We are committed to making sure that every school in the state, and every student, is funded fairly and equitably," Caul said. "This bill takes a large step towards that."
GVSU and Michigan State University are the two schools with amounts below their basic funding allotments.
House Speaker Chuck Perricone, R-Kalamazoo Township, attended the meeting and said the committee worked hard to make fair allotments for all state schools.
"After a lot of work on the part of Sen. Schwarz and Rep. Caul and all the committee members that are here today, we're able to come up with a wonderful proposal," he said. "We were able to come up with what I think is the best budget ever for higher education."
Koivisto, representing Northern Michigan University, in Marquette, and Michigan Technological University, in Houghton, was the only committee member who did not approve the budget. Both upper peninsula schools received 5-percent allocation increases for next year but Koivisto said they should have gotten more.
"I hate to rain on the parade, but I have some problems I want to air. I object to the way the conference committee was conducted," Koivisto said. "There was very little light for the public to see what was going on. We didn't discuss items of difference, we didn't come to a resolution, and we're going to come to a result that is grossly, grossly unfair."
He said NMU is being penalized because they increased student fees in order to computerize their campus, while MTU, one of the nation's top engineering schools, also received one of the lowest increases in state funding.
Perricone said he expects both the House and the Senate, as well as Engler, to approve the budget.
Judi Sullivan, executive director of the Network for Higher Education and Governmental Relations and executive assistant to the president, said she is pleased with the funds headed CMU's way.
Sullivan said she works with governmental relations for the university on an interim basis while the university searches for a vice president in that capacity. A two-year search for a vice president has been unsuccessful thus far.
"Although we don't have a VP, I don't think the percentage of increase could have been any better. Rep. Caul is in a very influential position and she's worked very hard for us to lessen the funding inequities," Sullivan said.
The process of obtaining more state funding was a battle, Sullivan said.
"I think it was very contentious at times, but the legislators worked very, very hard to come up with a good budget."
To encourage schools to keep tuition increases low, Caul added language to the bill penalizing schools 1.5 percent of their state funding if they increase tuition more than four percent.
"There was a lot of controversy over that," she said of the tuition cap. "My colleagues in the Senate wanted to eliminate the cap, but I felt it was my mission to fight for a more fair-priced education at all of our universities."
She said the Senate first wanted to dispose of the cap, then called for an across-the-board cap of 6 percent. A compromise was reached at four percent, the figure closest to inflation that both sides could agree on.
For the 1999-2000 academic year, CMU received an 8.6 percent increase in state allocations. The CMU Board of Trustees later approved a 3-percent tuition and fee increase, the highest raise allowed at the time without being penalized.
Plachta said he doesn't know yet if tuition will rise for the 2000-01 academic year.
"We are currently working on that. We'll make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees in July. It's just too early to say. We have a complicated budget, and we haven't determined that."
The board meets at 12:30 p.m. July 13 in the President's Conference Room.
Plachta also said it's too early to comment on whether a $100 per semester infrastructure fee for all students would be assessed to help pay for the new $50 million Health Professions Building. The building's construction is slated to begin next July at the northwest corner of Preston Street and East Campus Drive.
CMU received permission from the state to begin planning a new Health Professions Building in January 1998. The structure is the number-one priority on the president's building initiative report and in January, Plachta said a $100 infrastructure fee would help support the building and other costs.
Caul said legislators have already approved funds for the cost of the Health Professions Building. With the governor's approval, the state would contribute $37,499,800 million for the project. CMU is required to pay 25 percent of the overall price, or $12.5 million. In February, the Dow Foundation of Midland donated a $5 million grant towards the amount owed by CMU.
"There's some really great things happening for Central. Health care is very near and dear to my heart, and there's nothing I wanted more than for Central to have a new health building," said Caul, who served as a registered nurse for 35 years. "It will help prepare students entering the health-care arena"