University Times

Tuition increases would not exceed 4 percent next fall (the same percentage as this year's hike), under a fiscal year 2000 funding request that Pitt plans to submit to the state Department of Education tomorrow, Sept. 18.

The pool of money for staff and faculty salaries likewise would increase by 4 percent, effective in July 1999.

Pitt's salary budget increased by 3 percent this year. Raises, retroactive to July 1, will show up in faculty and staff paychecks Sept. 30.

The University is asking for a base appropriation of $164,534,000 next year — 4 percent more than this year's $158,205,000 — plus $4 million in one-time funding to enhance undergraduate curricula and services and to upgrade laboratories and equipment.

Pitt's budget request specifies that tuition increases for in-state undergraduates "would not exceed" 4 percent, assuming the University gets the state money it's asking for. The hike could be lower if the state comes through with more money than the University is requesting.

Whether or not state lawmakers approve all of Pitt's request, the University probably can't raise tuition by more than 4.5 percent next fall without paying a heavy price politically, according to Commonwealth Relations director Ann Dykstra.

The 14 universities of the State System of Higher Education froze tuition this year, she noted, and minimizing tuition remains a popular issue among voters. Some legislators have criticized Pitt and Pennsylvania's other state-related universities for hiking tuition in recent years at double the rate of inflation or higher. The current inflation rate is 1.5 percent.

University leaders argue that Pennsylvania continues to rank among the bottom five states in per capital support for higher education; that public university tuitions here are among the nation's highest; and that the national average increase in state funding for higher education was 6.2 percent this year, compared with the 3.28 percent that Pitt received.

"We can only continue to make those and other arguments" in lobbying for more state support, Dykstra told the University Senate's budget policies committee (BPC) last week.

Art Ramicone, Pitt interim vice chancellor for Finance, pointed out that the $4.9 million increase in Pitt's educational and general (E&G) funding from the state for the current fiscal year was offset by a 20 percent increase in employee health insurance costs. An equivalent health insurance hike looks likely for next year, Ramicone told BPC.

E&G and tuition are Pitt's two main sources of unrestricted income. (The University attracts $260 million annually in sponsored research support, but those funds are earmarked for specific research projects.) If E&G increases are eaten up by health insurance hikes, "that leaves tuition to satisfy most everything else, including [employee] compensation," Ramicone warned.

Pitt managed to hold tuition increases to 4 percent this year and increase the salary pool by 3 percent because of good investment returns and other one-time infusions of income, according to Ramicone. "We can't count on that happening every year," he said.

According to Dykstra, some state legislators are bothered by Pennsylvania's arguably stingy record of funding higher education. "But frankly, I don't see the will or leadership [in Harrisburg] to bump our funding increase up to 6 percent," she told BPC.

In a Sept. 11 letter to Chancellor Mark Nordenberg, BPC had urged Pitt's administration to make a strong case in its FY2000 budget presentation to Harrisburg for a salary pool increase of 6 percent.

BPC also recommended that Pitt set a two-year deadline for meeting its long-standing goal of raising faculty and librarian salaries here to the median among Pitt's fellow members of the Association of American Universities (AAU).

Last year, Pitt full professors trailed the AAU median by $4,200, associate profs by $1,800 and assistants by $3,500. Faculty librarians were almost at the bottom of their AAU/Association of Research Libraries comparison group, trailing the median by $4,700.

To bring Pitt's average salaries to last year's AAU medians, full professors would need a 5.2 percent raise, associates 3.2 percent, assistants 7.7 percent, and librarians 11.4 percent, BPC calculated.

"Moreover, it is quite probable that in the current year most other AAU institutions are again raising salaries by larger percentages than Pitt, so that next year's raises will have even wider gaps to overcome," BPC wrote to Chancellor Nordenberg.

BPC member Phil Wion acknowledged, ruefully, that the committee's letter was "rather anti-climactic" given the senior administration's request for a 4 percent salary pool increase. "Still, I think it's appropriate that we make official our basic position and state that we think it is important that the University do what it can to meet the AAU [median salary] targets within two years," Wion said.

Dykstra said Pitt's funding request will point out that faculty salaries here are falling behind those at peer institutions.

The senior administration had not put the final touches on Pitt's budget request document as the University Times went to press.

But Kathy Tosh, Pitt director of Budget and Financial Reporting, said the University was planning to ask the state for the following funding next year for existing line items:

* $146,430,000 in educational and general funds.

* $352,000 for services for disadvantaged students.

* $6,834,000 for the School of Medicine.

* $1,128,000 for the dental clinic.

* $8,426,000 for Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic.

* $544,000 for the Services for Teens at Risk suicide prevention center.

* $274,000 for the Center for Public Health Practice, which links Pitt's Graduate School of Public Health (Pennsylvania's only fully accredited public health school) and public health practitioners.

* $546,000 for rural education outreach provided by Pitt's Bradford campus.

Each item represents a 4 percent increase except for services for disadvantaged students (4.1 percent) and the Center for Public Health Practice (4.2 percent).

Pitt also plans to request one-time funding for a pair of new line items:

* $2.5 million for a program called Inventing the New Economy Through Advanced Research, to upgrade research and instructional labs.

* $1.5 million for Preparing Graduates for the New Economy, to enhance curricula and student services for undergraduates.

Including the one-time line items, Pitt is requesting a 6.5 percent increase over its current state appropriation.

Last year, lawmakers rejected Pitt's request for new line items, totaling $7.7 million, to upgrade labs, modernize infrastructure, improve instructional technology and ensure that Pitt graduates can compete for jobs. However, Pitt received some funding for those initiatives through various state technology and equipment grant programs.

— Bruce Steele