Members of the state Legislature's appropriations subcommittee on university budgets decided yesterday to hear testimony from faculty, staff and students at each of the three Arizona campuses in late February.

"We want to give the university community - including the UA - the opportunity to express their views on the budget recommendations," said Rep. George Cunningham, D-Tucson. "We think it is an important part of the process."

Cunningham, who is the minority whip for the state House of Representatives, called Republican Gov. Fife Symington's budget recommendations "a gradual erosion" within Arizona's educational institutions.

Symington recommends increasing the University of Arizona's main campus budget by approximately $1 million, while the Joint Legislative Budget Committee recommends a $4 million increase.

Overall, the proposed total budget for the UA stands at $226.1 million - less than 2 percent more than last year's budget and not enough to cover the 2 percent merit pay raise scheduled for Jan. 1, 1997, Cunningham said.

The drawback to the merit pay increase, Cunningham said, is that Symington recommends that no further funds be appropriated to the universities to cover the pay raise. Instead, he said, if universities want to give faculty and staff the 2 percent increase then they have to find it within their own budgets.

In a memo to President Manuel Pacheco, UA Chief Budget Officer Dick Roberts said the Joint Legislative Budget Committee recommends universities trim $5.5 million, or 2 percent, across the board from their budgets as outlined in the recent state Auditor General's report. That report stated that universities were inefficient and top-heavy with administrators.

Pacheco said in December that the report took a different approach from the UA in determining which employees directly contributed to the mission of the university and which did not.

Sharon Kha, assistant to the president, said she thought it would be important for faculty, staff and students to give legislators their input on the ongoing budget recommendations.

"If the legislators want to hold hearings on campus, we will do everything we can to accommodate them."

Cunningham said that in the past, presentations made to the subcommittee by university administrators took up most of the time allotted during hearings so that others wishing to comment could not.

Cunningham said members of the subcommittee will hold the hearings jointly at each of Arizona's three universities to alleviate that situation and allow input from the rest of the university community.

"We are going to rotate speakers among each of the groups within the university community so that each are fairly represented," Cunningham said.

Cunningham and his counterpart, Rep. Freddy Hershberger, R-Tucson, will conduct the UA hearing in the Student Union's Arizona Ballroom.

All three hearings will be held Feb. 23 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.