· Illinois State University opposes SB89 (DeValle)
· Senate Bill 89, as introduced, calls for very detailed set of line items—more than that expected in the appropriations for other state-funded entities.
· The functional breakouts proposed in Senate Bill 89 involve two standard functional areas (instruction and research) and two employee classifications (administration and civil service). We are not sure why these are major categories.
· Within each of these major headings, funds would be appropriated for a dozen or so traditional objects, some of which do not make sense. For example, we do not understand what would be appropriated for “Permanent Improvements” under the “Civil Service” category.
· SB89 would result in a considerable number of line items with little money attached. Salaries represent an average of 78 percent of public universities state funded budgets; allocations to the other line items under this proposal would be fairly small once the breakouts are presented by campus, program, and function.
· Each public university would likely incur additional costs associated with managing the budgets with line items of this detail, and would incur potentially significant costs during the first year of implementation in reprogramming accounting, payroll, and financial systems to accommodate the new line items.
· Departments will lose valuable flexibility, as the freedom they now have to transfer funds among objects would be rescinded.
· While we prefer to maintain the current lump-sum appropriation, if a line item bill is to be passed we prefer HB1543 (Granberg) which returns appropriations to the form they were prior o lump-sum appropriations.
· HB 1118 (Joyce) passed out of the House by a vote of 114 to 6.
· It (or bills similar to it) has support in the Senate and the Governor has endorsed it.
· The bill emulates the Western program whereby new students pay a rate that will not change for up to 8 semesters or 3.5 years.
· Illinois State University is proposing to begin implementing the concepts in the “truth in tuition” bill early—Fall 2003.
· The University does not support the addition of the concept of tuition caps to this bill.
· Bills were introduced early in the session in the House of Representatives to cap tuition at the lower of either the Consumer Price Index or 5 percent.
· Those bills have not moved out of the house and our sense is that they will only gain support if it appears as if public universities are “gouging” students this fall.
· Illinois State University opposes the concept of statutorily defined tuition rate caps.
· By freezing tuition and fees for returning students for Fall 2003 and by implementing early concepts of the truth-in-tuition bill, we demonstrate that it is the Board of trustees that is authorized to set tuition rates.
· We hope this concept is “off the table.” For this legislative session.
· Presumably, this was one of the conditions for gaining support for the bonding program passed earlier.
· Probably best to not say too much about this bill right now or until we sense that circumstances may have shifted.
· Of the four pieces of legislation cited here, this would have the most deleterious affect on our fiscal flexibility. It would mean that the University could not use the Income Fund to handle many of the short-term financial transactions necessary to meet many of the budget reductions proposed by the administration.