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Salaries are top priority in budget proposal
Salaries will receive top priority in the budget the UW submits to the Legislature during the 1999 legislative session, UW administrators told participants in an unprecedented University community budget forum Thursday.
The forum was a consultative step in preparing to submit the UW’s 19992001 biennial budget to the Legislature. It was sponsored by the Faculty Senate and held in lieu of a report to the Senate from the chair of the Senate Committee on Planning and Budgeting, Ted Kaltsounis.
The forum began with remarks by UW President Richard L. McCormick and presentation of the current working draft of the proposed budget by Harlan F. Patterson, vice provost for planning and budgeting. The audience then had the opportunity to comment on the salary, operating and capital aspects of the working draft.
President McCormick described the state’s budget-setting context as “constrained” even though the economy is robust. “The bad times are caused by politics, not economics,” he said. “Taxpayer interest in investing in public goods has declined; it is our responsibility to sustain the case for investing in public goods generally and in the University in particular.”
The State’s projected carryforward budget, the amount needed to sustain current operations including funding for additional enrollments and a modest salary increase, is estimated at $20.8 billion, which is more than the Initiative 601 spending limit of $20.5 billion and the current estimated revenue forecast of $20.3 billion.
“Nothing can be achieved without improving the salaries of faculty, staff, TAs and RAs,” President McCormick said, calling salaries the administration’s top priority for this session.
Because the UW competes in a national job market, some UW faculty members have been offered salaries at other institutions that are twice what they receive at the UW. Although special legislative funding for recruitment and retention has helped the University retain some faculty who receive competitive offers, the atmosphere in which raises can only be achieved through competitive offers has seriously damaged morale and loyalty to the UW, President McCormick said.
Patterson described three aspects of the salary proposal:
Other goals in the draft budget are enrollment growth on all three campuses; improved support for academic programs, especially those that are solely state-supported and have poor budgets; and several capital projects.
“Many people believe that traditional students and life-long learners can be lumped together and provided education through computers and distance learning efforts more cheaply than the cost of supporting a traditional campus,” President McCormick said.
“But, no one who has priced technology thinks these things can be done cheaply,” he said. “And I have never met a parent who wants less than a campus experience for his or her children. We will do the best we can to challenge the wrong-headed view that distance learning is the answer for everyone.”
The working draft budget proposes 900 new full-time equivalent students at Seattle, 300 at both Bothell and Tacoma for the biennium to help the state meet the anticipated enrollment demand in the coming decade. It also calls for $31 million to invest in educational and research technology and to support integrating technology into education.
The capital portion of the draft budget was designed in suites of projects, rather than the priority listing of individual projects as done in the past. In the suite concept building construction and renovation schedules that would complement each other in terms of project and academic program planning are grouped together as a package.
For example, the law school suite includes building a new law school on campus and renovating Condon Hall to use as surge space while Johnson and Guggenheim are renovated.
Two other suites of capital projects are in the draft budget request for construction dollars: the Suzzallo Library suite (including renovation of the Kane Hall basement and the Graduate School of Library and Information Sciences; and the Bothell and Tacoma campuses suite.
Design phase funding would be requested for the Life Sciences I suite (Johnson Hall, Health Sciences J and H wings and Raitt Hall) and probably for Life Sciences II/III.
The capital budget proposals, particularly the law school suite and the decision to locate the school on the main campus, drew the most comment. Several speakers expressed the view that the Life Sciences I suite (Earth sciences) should have precedence over the law school suite.
A number of speakers also expressed concern that the UW administration was being too compliant with legislators who do not appreciate the true cost of higher education. “Because we are smart we have always figured out how to do more with less. We are so good at it the Legislature expects us to continually to do more with less,” said Leroy Searle, director of the Center for the Humanities. “Many units are already at a stage of crisis. There is no wiggle room left.”
Provost Lee Huntsman responded, “Essentially with this budget we are asking the Legislature how much University it wants to buy. There are consequences in how they answer that. However much they buy, that’s how much we will deliver.”
Faculty and staff may send comments on the draft budget to Patterson at patterh@u.washington.edu. Comments will be considered in drafting a proposed budget for presentation to the Board of Regents in July.
The draft budget material is available at the Web site http://weber.u.washington.edu/~fachome. ¶
Nedra Floyd Pautler