Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1972 [PAGE 557]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1972]

U N I V E R S I T Y OF I L L I N O I S

547

I B H E budgetary proposals, and as the University's response to the programmatic recommendations. (In presenting this document and recommendation, the President emphasized the University's intention to concentrate upon the forward-looking aspects of relationships with the Board of Higher Education, especially the opportunities for new cooperative approaches in procedural and other matters.)

On motion of Mr. Howard, this recommendation was approved by the following vote: Aye, Mr. Forsyth, Mr. Hahn, Mr. Howard, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Neal, Mr. Pogue, Mr. Steger, Mr. Swain; no, none; absent, Dr. Bakalis, Mr. Grimes, Governor Ogilvie. The following is a summary of the Commentary as presented and approved. The full text of the Report is filed with the Secretary of the Board.

The University of Illinois presents in this Commentary its analysis of the budgetary and programmatic recommendations for Fiscal Year 1972-73 as proposed in Executive Director's Report No. 103, which were approved by the Illinois Board of Higher Education on January 4, 1972. The budgetary recommendations adopted by the I B H E have been submitted to the Governor and to the General Assembly as appropriation requests for the institutions and agencies of higher education for 1972-73. The programmatic recommendations have been submitted to the governing boards of the public universities of Illinois as advice for program changes (principally the reduction or elimination of programs as a means to providing resources for reallocation to "higher-priority" programs). C H A P T E R I. The Historical Background of Executive Director's Report No. 103 September 8, 1971, marked a break in the prior history of cooperative relationships between the staff of the Board of Higher Education and the public senior universities regarding budgetary and related program planning. This chapter reviews the history of these relationships — showing that during the past two years there has been a progressive decline in the level of cooperation. Then two events precipitated a further decline: (a) the I B H E ' s adoption of a recommendation in Excutive Director's Report No. 99 that the institutional governing boards not seek legislative restoration of any of the F Y 1971-72 budget cuts made by the Governor; (b) the issuance by the I B H E ' s Deputy Director for Program Planning of a "Request for Institutional Program Priorities" — a memorandum that had not been previously discussed with institutional representatives and that prescribed a totally new approach to the development of recommendations for operating appropriations to the public universities. 1. The new approach to budgetary planning is described as reflecting a "new fiscal ideology," which appeared to rest on several underlying assumptions the University of Illinois considered to be untenable. In sum, it was assumed that "without significant amounts of new money" the public universities should attempt further massive expansion of programs, especially in the costly health fields, and that this could be done through internal budget cuts and the diversion of funds into new and expanded programs of higher priority. (See pp. 7-8.) 1 T h e validity of these far-reaching assumptions was never considered. The institutions were simply asked to "cooperate" in a prescribed program of implementation that most of them considered to be completely inappropriate. 2. The University rejected the request that it provide a list of the "lowest IS per cent" of its programs (in budgetary terms) — partly because of the impossibly short deadline set, but primarily because such a procedure in program evaluation violated the University's Statutes and was completely contrary to the University's conception of the procedures that would have to be followed in order to establish that any program was "not educationally or economically justified." (See pp. 9-12.) 3. T h e University contends that the problem of budgetary preparation should have

1 The page numbers cited in parentheses in this Summary are references to the Commentary.