UC Regents Seek $145-Million Budget Increase From Governor

The University of California Board of Regents approved a preliminary budget Friday that seeks an increase of $145.4 million in state funding from Gov. Pete Wilson to stave off student fee increases and halt an exodus of experienced professors.

That amount is nearly four times the size of the $38-million budget increase granted the university system last year, its first funding increase in four years.

University officials said they hope that improvements in the state’s economy will allow the governor and Legislature to approve the funding increase. Their budget is a recommendation to Wilson, who will release his budget proposal in January and indicate whether the regents’ conditions can be met.

UC Provost Walter E. Massey characterized the regents’ budget--the first in four years that does not call for a student fee increase--as one designed to stabilize the system and set the stage for competitive recruitment of faculty. It would bring the system’s total funding to $2.7 billion.

“If the state is able to fund our full need, we will be able to maintain student fees at their current level next year,” Massey said. “If state funding falls short, we will have to continue looking to student fee increases as one way to help fund the budget. If so, we are committed to increasing financial aid as well.”

Massey said one of the chief concerns in drafting next year’s budget was to include enough money to recruit faculty members. The university system’s teaching staff has been reduced significantly by early retirements over the last several years.

The proposed budget includes funds to hire 120 new faculty members and increase faculty salaries 5%, bringing them closer to the average paid by comparable institutions.

At the regents’ October meeting, Massey also expressed concern that the best of the remaining faculty have become easy recruitment targets for other universities because of the lag in pay raises.

“It is essential that we make some progress toward full restoration of competitive salary levels,” Massey said.

In other action during the two-day session, the board approved a $168-million capital budget. Almost all the projects were approved by the governor and Legislature last year, but lost funding when voters rejected a bond issue on the June ballot.

The regents also appointed UC San Francisco faculty member and Nobel laureate J. Michael Bishop to a University Professorship, the highest honor the system bestows on a professor for outstanding scholarship and teaching. Bishop shared the 1989 Nobel Prize for medicine/physiology.