Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1976 [PAGE 353]

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BOARD OF TRUSTEES

[July 16

to preserve reasonable salary increases have been difficult to achieve and have hurt our ability to maintain our programs at the level we are expected to maintain. Over $12 million have been taken from the amount originally endorsed by the Board of Higher Education and by Governor Walker. This amount is nearly half of our original increase. In order to support salary increases we have placed a "hard freeze" on replacing personnel at the University level and at Chicago Circle and UrbanaChampaign. A "limited freeze" is in effect at the Medical Center where the remaining program expansion still requires some new personnel. Dr. Brady and his people along with the Chancellors and their staff members, including certainly the Deans and Directors of our colleges and other units, have worked long and hard and imaginatively to bring order out of chaos and to create only austerity where disaster threatened. I am proud both of the solutions they have developed and of the spirit with which they sought those solutions. On the capital side, we fared well. Turner Hall has finally made it; the new University Hospital is well funded for 1975-76 although agreement was reached to stretch out the funding over two fiscal years rather than to put the full amount in one year; our other projects have all been approved. In spite of the controversy over the so-called supplemental capital program, higher education projects were supported strongly by the General Assembly. It is clear that 1977 will be another difficult fiscal year. Only during the next few weeks can we complete the task of recasting our 1977 needs in the light of the new 1976 base. We will bring to you in September a final 1976 budget and a tentative 1977 budget. T h e 1976 budget will be based upon the specifics I have just briefly described. We will seek action on 1977 budget requests at the October meeting of the Board. In view of the fiscal condition of the State, I can see no way to avoid recommending a tuition increase for 1976-77. It is illogical to assume that the taxpayers of Illinois will continue to bear the full share of the increased costs of higher education and our user fee (tuition) must be increased, in my view, to bear some part of that burden. Our people, our libraries, our laboratories, our grounds, our buildings have been carrying more than their share of these increased costs, and the taxpayers have carried their share. T h e time has come to reassess the appropriate share which must be borne by those enrolled in our programs, and our 1977 budget recommendations to you will contain the results of that reassessment. Finally, let me close this report with a note of optimism. While the last few weeks have been traumatic, no one can deny that Illinois faces serious financial problems. Recognizing that fact, it is clear that higher education did receive strong support from the General Assembly and from the Governor. Rather than concentrate upon our losses, we need to recognize our gains. Many people have worked very hard to insure that the fiscal problems of our State did not lead to fiscal disaster for higher education. We have a strong base of support, and I cannot feel that despair is a proper feeling in recognition of that support.

Also distributed was a documentary of charts and other materials illustrating the course of the budget request from its beginning last fall to the final approved budget for the new year from State appropriations.

Long-Range Planning, Institute of Aviation

President Corbally reported that a long-range planning conference concerning the Institute of Aviation had been held and that a report would