PUBLICATIONS Inside Illinois Vol. 23, No. 18, April 22, 2004

Legislator letters make an impact in budgeting process

By Sharita Forrest, Assistant Editor
217-244-1072; slforres@illinois.edu

As the spring session of the Illinois General Assembly draws to a close and legislators begin to consider the university's budget for the coming fiscal year, which begins July 1, a broad spectrum of people in the campus community are making their voices heard.

Barclay Jones, chairman of the Urbana-Champaign Senate budget committee and a professor of nuclear engineering, is asking faculty members to write letters to the Legislature describing the negative impact budget cuts of the past few fiscal years have had on their abilities to deliver quality education. He is asking faculty members to use their personal resources, such as stationery and postage, for their letters, which he may deliver to the appropriations committee.

Jones announced the campaign at the senate's March 29 meeting.

The letter-writing campaign mirrors a campaign that student members of the Urbana-Champaign Senate organized earlier this year. By setting up tables in the Illini Union, Lincoln Hall, Wohlers Hall and other campus buildings during a two-day period, volunteers collected about 1,500 student signatures on a form letter that expressed concern about recent years' budget cuts. Student senators Hassan Al-Shawaf and Felipe Hillard, a junior and senior, respectively, in the College of Business, delivered the letters to the chair of the House Appropriations Committee and spoke to the committee briefly, expressing their concern about declining state support for higher education.

"(The student campaign) turned out to be very effective with the appropriations hearings that were held in the Illinois House of Representatives," Jones said. "We have hearings coming up in the (Illinois) Senate, and we expect that if we deliver the same type of detailed information -- not filtered by university administration -- that they may have a better appreciation of what impact has occurred and would occur if they continue to impose additional cuts."

"Right now, our university is less than 22 percent state funded, and we're supposed to be the flagship university of the state," Hillard said. "Not even a quarter of our money comes from the state."

The student senators are kicking off another letter-writing campaign and hope to get at least 1,500 more signatures on letters that they will deliver to the Senate appropriations committee during its April 27 hearings. University administrators will address the Senate appropriations committee that day as well.

Members of the Association of Academic Professionals at the Urbana campus traveled to Springfield March 24 to rally with groups from across the state on Higher Education Lobby Day. About 15 people from the Urbana campus joined forces with members of the Illinois Education Association, a union of which AAP is a local chapter, and other groups at the state Capitol to show their support for higher education.

"The lobbyists got us in to talk to about 30 state legislators," said Jenny Barrett, AAP president. "A lot of the legislators said they would try to do all they could, but it's a very tight budget year and resources are limited."

Barrett and Hillard said they thought that a show of support from students and employees made an impression on state legislators, who may be accustomed to hearing only from university officials.

Barrett also said that involving primary and secondary school teachers as IEA did on Higher Education Lobby Day creates an alliance that is important because it helps "people see education as a continuum from K to 16, so our groups (are not viewed as) competing for resources."

Barrett said the AAP may launch a letter-writing campaign or contact legislators in other ways in hopes of influencing the Legislature's decision on the university's FY05 budget.

In his Feb. 18 budget address, Gov. Rod Blagojevich's higher education budget proposal assumed a $26 million reduction in administrative costs across all public universities. Under the proposed plan, the UI would lose $13.9 million in general fund appropriations, the equivalent of a 2 percent reduction to its operating budget, which was also recommended by the Illinois Board of Higher Education.

According to the governor's proposal, the UI's capital budget allocation would be $10.735 million for repair and renovations at all three campuses, including $3 million for planning the Lincoln Hall remodeling project at Urbana.

"We've been reaching out to students, the faculty and to our alumni and all these groups have been engaged in helping us in Springfield this year," said Rick Schoell, director for federal relations and for government relations, who commended faculty and staff members, alumni and students for their work on the university's behalf.

The state is facing a $2 billion deficit next fiscal year, "so it's going to be difficult to find additional resources," Schoell said.

New software helps units prepare budgets
Campus units will be using new software packages when they begin preparing their budgets for FY05. Full story

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