Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1946 [PAGE 413]

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110AED OF TRUSTEES EXECUTIVE SESSION

[March 13

At this point, the Board went into executive session and considered the following matters presented by the President of the University.

BIENNIAL BUDGET FOR 1 9 4 5 - 1 9 4 7 (7) On February 27 President P a r k Livingston of the Board 'of Trustees, Provost Coleman R. Griffith, and Mr. Lloyd Morey, Comptroller, conferred with Director George B. McKibbin of the State Department of Finance concerning the University's budget requests for the biennium of 1945-1947. T h e Director informed these representatives of the University that the Governor requested that the amount of increase in appropriations for operation to the University to be made from tax funds be restudied and reduced below the $4,630,132 of increase in the revised budget estimates as approved by the Board on January 20, 1945, ar>d submitted to the Illinois Budgetary Commission on January 23. Accordingly the following proposals are offered for consideration. They were also sent to the Director of Finance on March 3, 1945, with the statement that since they had not been considered by the Board of Trustees they were submitted for discussion only: 1. Because of proposals for increases of salaries of all state employees by 10 per cent or more, it is necessary for the University to increase materially the provision for nonacademic salary increases. T o this end the contingent item of $200,000 in the budget is transferred to nonacademic salary increases, making the total of the latter item $429,283. 2. T h e budget as last submitted includes an item of $200,000 for replacement and modernization in educational departments, which expenditures are of a nonrecurring character. A review of the University Income F u n d now indicates that this item can be met from the balance which will remain in that fund June 30, 1945. T o that end the proposed appropriation of the University Income Fund is increased by $200,000 to $6,200,000, with a corresponding decrease in the appropriation requested from tax funds. 3. All items of increase in Sections I, II, I I I , and I V in the original budget are essential. T h e original budget included provisions of $1,162,507 for the restoration of salaries of staff members now on leave of absence for war service (these salaries were eliminated from the budget for the current biennium of 1943-1945) and of $1,282,339 for new positions to meet the anticipated increase in enrollment. In the budget as revised on January 20 the item for new positions was eliminated. So it will be necessary to rely on the first of these two provisions for both the restoration of salaries of staff members on leave and for new positions to take care of increases in enrollment. There is grave uncertainty that this will be sufficient to provide the added staff necessary. T h e only place in the budget in which additional reductions can be made is in Section IV, "Expansion of Present P r o g r a m s and New Programs." This section, although already drastically reduced, again has been adjusted by a further decrease of $451,326, leaving a net balance of $1,455,000 out of an original request of $3,131,596 for comparable items. It should be noted that no part of this reduction can be provided for from any funds thus far allotted to the University of Illinois for a post-war building program. (The figure of $3,131,596 is after allowing for the transfer of $233,859 of Physical Plant items to another section of the budget, and transfer of the Betatron ($1,300,000) to the post-war building budget.) 4. By agreement with the Budgetary Commission, the appropriation for Services for Crippled Children, now included at $225,000, will be treated in a separate bill, not a part of the University budget. Special legislation is also contemplated which would treat the federal grants of $320,262 as a trust fund not requiring appropriation. 5. Allowing for the foregoing transfers, the appropriations to the University for the current biennium, 1943-1945, include $15,056,924 from tax revenues and $4,501460 from income, a total of $19,558,384. T h e adjustments proposed herein would provide an increase of $3,978,806 in tax funds, a total of $19,035,730; an increase of $1,698,540 in University income, a total of $6,200,000; this would result in a total increase of $5,677,346 and a total appropriation of $25,235,730.