PHOENIX - Faculty salary raises and an increase in the graduate teaching assistant work force are the top UA budget requests, University of Arizona President Peter Likins said to a panel of state senators yesterday.

Likins spoke before both the Arizona Senate and House of Representatives Appropriations Committees in a budget presentation by the state's three public universities.

"The top priority in our request for funds beyond the (Joint Legislative Budget Committee) recommendation is a response to our decision package that will increase the graduate student teaching assistant work force," Likins told the Senate panel.

Teaching assistants have seen an increasingly heavy workload in recent years, working on average 22 percent more hours than assigned, Likins said. Some work up to 50 percent more hours, he added.

The additional TA workload is a result of the university's strategy for retaining key faculty members, many of whom leave the UA for higher salaries at other institutions.