By Tom Collins
Arizona Daily Wildcat
January 15, 1997

State budget expected to include more money for schools

Under Gov. Fife Symington's executive budget recommendation for 1998 released yesterday morning, the Arizona Board of Regents would receive a total funding increase of $43.3 million, up from $25.3 million for 1997, a 71 percent jump.

But the Joint Legislative Budget Committee, in its presentation to a joint meeting of the state House and Senate Appropriations Committees yesterday afternoon, recommended an increase in funding of $34.4 million, with $18.1 coming from the state's general fund.

In the governor's plan, the $43.3 million was allocated to the regents to be distributed to the three state universities' budgets as the regents see fit - a change from previous years.

At a news conference last week, Symington said he hopes to give the governor-appointed regents control over all specific allocations in the budget in the next few years.

The governor's budget request includes $28.3 million from the state's general fund for the schools' general operating budget and $12.9 million to increase salaries. According to the governor's plan, 80 percent of the regents' and universities' funding requests for will be met.

The budget committee plan would include $8.2 million for Faculty Teaching Incentive Pay. This money would be used to reward teachers who spend nine or more hours a week in the classroom.

"It's time to put our money where our mouth is," said Ted Ferris, director of the Joint Legislative Budget Committee. He cited a study that showed professors spend only 7.8 hours teaching per week.

The governor's request also calls for a process review committee to examine the ways in which the university spends and keeps track of its money and give that information to the governor's Office of Management and Budget and the Joint Legislative Budget Committee.

Symington's plan asks the regents to consider a tuition increase in the law schools of both ASU and UA to consider raising their tuition.

The Joint Legislative Budget Committee recommended the regents raise law school tuitions by $1,000 for in-state students and $2,000 for out-of-state students.