Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1968 [PAGE 154]

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102

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[September 21

CAPITAL BUDGET REQUEST UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS FOR THE BIENNIUM 1 9 6 7 - 6 9 (26) On July 27, 1966, the Board of Trustees approved a capital budget request for the biennium 1967-69 for the three campuses, as shown in the table on page 103. The total amount of state funds requested was $163,24*5,000. As directed by the Board of Trustees, this budget request was submitted to the Board of Higher Education for its review. The Board of Higher Education requested its staff to make an analysis and recommendations, and at a regular meeting of that Board on September 12 and 13, the staff recommended the sums shown in the table on page 103, for a total amount of state funds of $99,698,788. After hearing the objections of the representatives of the University of Illinois to the budget reductions recommended by the staff of the Board of Higher Education, the Board approved adding the sum of $12,322,931. The restored amount was distributed as indicated in the table on page 103. The difference between the final action of the Board of Higher Education and the earlier recommendation of the Board of Trustees is approximately $51,000,000. The major changes a r e : (a) reduction in the size of the proposed College of Dentistry building at the Medical Center campus; (b) reduction in the size of the Science-Engineering Center, the omission of the Third Addition to the Library, the omission of the Art and Architecture Addition, and the omission of a greenhouse at the Chicago Circle campus; and (c) the omission of the Engineering Library, Nuclear Reactor Addition, Turner Hall Headhouse and Greenhouse, and the East Chemistry Addition (although planning funds for the last project were approved), and by reductions in land and utilities at the Urbana-Champaign campus. The action of the Board of Higher Education represents a cut in the Trustees' budget of approximately 30 per cent. The Trustees' budget had reflected an earlier cut of approximately 33 per cent in the requests presented by departments and colleges. Although the projects approved will enable the University to make considerable progress in several areas, the consequences of the budget reductions made by the Board of Higher Education are of substantial proportions. At the Medical Center, there will be a smaller increase in the production of dental graduates than was planned by the L T niversity. At the Chicago Circle campus, there will be several effects: a slower pace of development of graduate work than was contemplated, since there will be a sharp reduction in facilities requested for graduate work in Engineering; a slower rate of growth in Art and Architecture; a reduction in overall student capacity below the projections made for 1970 and 1971; increased overcrowding of the library; and inadequate research facilities in the field of botany. At Urbana-Champaign, the deletions will: postpone much-needed improvement in the library facilities for the College of Engineering, with continued impairment of instructional and study effectiveness in that College; eliminate the possibility of securing federal matching funds for a nuclear engineering facility, and hence limit the expansion of a rapidly-growing graduate program; delay the construction program for instruction and research in the College of Agriculture; delay the building of the Addition for the Department of Chemistrj' and Chemical Engineering and hence in the provision of up-to-date research facilities for one of the University's most distinguished departments; and cause an over-all reduction in enrollment capacity at the Urbana-Champaign campus below the estimates made for 1970. From this inventory of omissions and reductions and their consequences, it is apparent that the deletions or reductions will have serious effect upon the enrollment of the University of Illinois, upon the degree of expansion of graduate and professional work and upon essential improvement of facilities to reduce serious space deficiencies. On the positive side of the analysis, the budget, as approved by the Board of Higher Education, will have these results: a significant increase in enrollment capacity at Urbana-Champaign and Chicago Circle; the provision of facilities for the initiation and development of graduate work at Chicago Circle; provision for a long-needed library facility at the Medical Center campus; an increase in the output of graduates in law and in dentistry; the preparation of working drawings on three buildings which will speed up their completion when funds become available for their construction; and the completion of several projects already approved for the Medical Center and_ the Urbana-Champaign campuses, but for which the present resources are insufficient due to cost escalation.