RALEIGH -- The state House is proposing deep cuts to the state's university system.
The House is expected to debate and vote on its budget proposal next week, but details of its $19 billion spending plan began to emerge Thursday. House Democrats who control the chamber and write the budget began making the case that their proposal is an improvement over the Senate's, largely because it would save 1,600 jobs of K-12 teachers from the chopping block.
"It allows all classroom teachers to keep their jobs," said state Rep. Mickey Michaux, the House's chief budget writer.
The House budget provides a far gloomier scenario for public universities than previous spending plans put forth by Gov. Bev Perdue and the Senate. It recommends new cuts for the UNC system totaling $175 million, on top of about $50 million in cuts approved a year ago, according to draft budget proposals.
If approved, the cuts would lead to the elimination of about 1,700 positions across the university system, a far larger total than the 1,200 in jeopardy under Perdue's spending proposal, UNC President Erskine Bowles said Thursday.
"Fully understanding the impacts of these reductions will take some time," Bowles said in a news release Thursday. "In all of our previous analyses, we never imagined that reductions would reach this level."
Even if 1,700 positions are eliminated, fewer workers than that would lose their jobs. Universities routinely hold positions vacant to prepare for budget cuts.
Still, Bowles and others have said for months now that cuts at that level will force the elimination of hundreds of faculty positions across the state.
The House budget trims $15 million from the state's $44 million annual appropriation to UNC Hospitals. Also cut would be $9 million in tuition waivers for UNC system athletes who are from outside North Carolina, repealing a controversial measure enacted five years ago.
The House budget would fund some of the university's top priorities, such as enrollment growth for the coming year. But the plan would limit the university's growth to 1 percent in 2011-12, something Bowles said would deny "qualified students access to the knowledge and skills they need to compete for jobs."
And the House would provide $12 million for need-based financial aid, which is far less than the $34.9 million the system requested. The universities would, however, retain about $34 million gleaned from tuition revenues, a change from current law stipulating that the money go to the state's general fund.
Details of the budget were being hammered out Thursday and could change over the weekend. State Rep. Paul Stam, an Apex Republican and the chamber's minority leader, said spending in the budget would be slightly more than last year, an issue Republicans are likely to pounce on next week. A slate of taxes and federal stimulus dollars are slated to expire next near, meaning next year's budget could have a deficit of $3 billion.
"Why spend more in the middle of a recession?" Stam said.
Democrats are likely to focus on teacher jobs as they pitch the budget.
To protect 1,600 teacher jobs, the House would divert $126 million from the state lottery.
The lottery revenues already benefit education, specifically four priorities - class size, scholarships, school building and More at Four, a pre-kindergarten program. The House maneuver would tweak how much money goes to those priorities and raid the lottery's $16.8 million reserve fund.
State Rep. Rick Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat and an education budget writer, said changing the lottery funding formulas is a onetime step meant to save jobs.
"We're in an extraordinary fiscal time," Glazier said. "We're trying to use innovative and extraordinary measures to protect the classroom."
Staff writers Lynn Bonner and Jane Stancill contributed to this report.
