Senate puts more in budget for UNC system

Universities get a helping hand

When the state House approved a budget three weeks ago, it called on the state's public universities to save $19 million by cutting 188 mid-level administrative positions. It proposed to give university professors a smaller pay raise than those for public school teachers and community college instructors. And it offered little more than seed money for several building projects at UNC campuses.

But on Wednesday, the state Senate stepped up once again for the 16-campus system when it tentatively approved its own $20 billion budget proposal. The Senate plan would erase the personnel cuts, boost faculty pay raises to the 5 percent proposed for teachers and community college instructors and commit to $1.2 billion in borrowing for new construction, with nearly all that money going to UNC campuses.

And that's not all. The Senate plan would restore $68 million in salary money for unfilled positions that the House took to help give most state workers a 4.25 percent pay increase. Senate budget writers would give an additional $15.5 million to the new research campus in Kannapolis, $5 million toward the bioengineering program at N.C. State University's engineering college and set up an $8 million "competitiveness fund" to encourage campus research in growing fields such as nanoscience and environmental sciences that have potential for business spinoffs.

"We're very pleased," said Andy Willis, the UNC system's lobbyist.

Sen. Kay Hagan, a Greensboro Democrat and a chief budget writer, has no qualms about every penny dedicated to the universities. She sees it as an investment in the state's economy for decades to come.

"If we don't educate our kids, we're not only going to lose jobs to other states, the U.S. is going to lose its work force to other countries," Hagan said.

But Rep. Doug Yongue, a Scotland County Democrat who is a chief budget writer in the House, looks at another area of the public education system that has been shown to be lacking. The state's public schools have a dropout rate of roughly 30 percent, but the Senate chopped out $7 million in prevention grants that House leaders put in their budget proposal to tackle that problem.

Yongue said the Senate budget favors universities over public schools and community colleges. While the universities would gain roughly $60 million, public schools would receive about $2 million more, and community colleges $7 million less.

Yongue doesn't dispute that the universities could use the money.

"I want to look after the universities just as much as anybody else," he said. "But I want to make sure all three areas are looked after fairly."

Others have raised questions about the level of borrowing for UNC construction projects, especially since it does not require voter approval. And as Senate budget writers returned the salary money to UNC campuses, they came up with less money for most state employees. They would get a 4 percent raise in the Senate proposal.

The Senate budget does throw a couple of challenges at the UNC system. There are $11 million in "efficiency reductions" that the system would have to find. Plus, the Senate budget includes a provision that sets up "zero based budgeting" for the UNC system. In theory, that means the system will have to justify every dollar spent, instead of expecting much of its operations to be financed year after year with little justification.

Willis said UNC President Erskine Bowles, a former chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, is up to the task if lawmakers tell him to do it.

"He's been very concerned since he joined the university system about truth in budgeting," Willis said.