Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1992 [PAGE 145]

EXTRACTED TEXT FROM PAGE:

1993]

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

133

several issues before them today in the board's agenda that dealt with the Priorities, Quality, and Productivity (PQP) initiatives of the Illinois Board of Higher Education. Agenda item nos. 10 through 15 were noted as responses to the PQP initiative. The president told the trustees that they would receive a special report at the February 1993 meeting on the University's overall response to program reviews resulting from the PQP initiative. He then related that both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly in a Joint Resolution had expressed their will with regard to a suggestion that the role and authority of the Illinois Board of Higher Education be expanded to include program termination. The president told the trustees that while this was a positive and constructive action by the two chambers of the General Assembly, the universities in the State now had even more responsibility to proceed in a careful, sensitive, and tough-minded way to set priorities and to assess quality and productivity. He indicated to the members of the board that recommendations concerning the fulfillment of the PQP program directives would be brought to them for action within the next six months. The president emphasized that addressing these issues in the face of the serious fiscal problems that higher education faces would make for a true challenge. President Ikenberry then turned to a discussion of the budget for Fiscal Year 1994 that has been recommended by the IBHE. This budget was presented and discussed at the IBHE board meeting the week prior. He described four major problems inherent in this proposed budget for the University. (1) Equity for the University of Illinois in the operating budget suggested. It appears that the tuition monies that were expected for the University, due to enrollment increases and the introduction of a differential tuition for engineering at Urbana, were, in fact, used as the basis for withdrawing anticipated general revenue funds from the State. Further, the increase recommended for the University seems inequitable in comparison to the rate of increase recommended for the other systems. The president told the trustees that this issue was under discussion and that would continue. (2) An item that was a high priority for all of higher education in the State was not honored by the IBHE. This was the request for a budget increase of 1 / 2 of 1 percent to address compensation problems for the lowest-paid staff in the universities. (3) An item on the list of priorities for capital projects for $ 15 million for telecommunications improvements was a surprise in that it had not appeared on previous lists from higher education institutions.