Public Hearing
FY2008-2009 Biennial Budget
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
Ridgewater College (Hutchinson Campus)
Chair Renier, Chancellor McCormick, and Members of the Board of Trustees:
I am Dr. Nancy Black, President of the Inter Faculty Organization (IFO), which for the benefit of members of the audience, is the organization that represents more than 3,000 full and part time faculty at Minnesota’s seven state universities.
In anticipation of the budget development process for next biennium, last spring the IFO Board adopted budget recommendations. The Inter Faculty Organization's number one priority is to fully fund inflation and to do so through state appropriations, not tuition increases. The simple fact is that one dollar this year buys about 4 percent less than one dollar a year ago, and 7 percent less than 2 years ago. We need to recognize this in our budget requests or the quality of higher education suffers. It is not possible to maintain competitive compensation to attract and retain quality faculty if funding does not even keep up with inflation.
As the Board is aware, our state university salaries are below average at all ranks when compared to peer institutions nationally. Nearly one fifth of faculty searches failed at state universities, and that’s only the surface of this serious problem. In many cases institutions are forced to hire less than their first choice in order to fill the position.
Energy costs and the cost of books all keep going up. If these inflationary costs are not recognized in our appropriation request, either these costs are pushed on to students in the form of higher tuition rates—and we all know what has happened to tuition rates—or the result is lower quality. In the last four years, state university tuition has had a staggering 44 percent increase. That increase is not because of state university faculty increases in salary. The raises in faculty salary for the same period totaled less than 9 percent on our salary schedule. In the early years of MnSCU, inflation was routinely funded as provided for in the statutory higher education funding formula. However, 2001 was the last time there was an appropriation for inflation in MnSCU (for the 2002-2003 biennium). The legislature appropriated $79.8 million for inflation. Since that time inflation has reduced our buying power by more than 13 percent.
While faculty are innovative and like new initiatives and challenges, we believe that a high priority for MnSCU should be to preserve the quality of the core programs we already offer. Our core programs are important because they produce 32,000 graduates per year—not to mention career education for 6,000 employers and 141,000 employees each year. They produce over half the state’s new teaching graduates; 78 percent of the nursing degrees; 92 of the law enforcement officers; and, 48 percent of the new business graduates in this state--they make Minnesota work. We must maintain the quality of these programs by making sure funding keeps pace with inflation. Therefore, we support appropriation requests of 3.6 percent per year for inflation adjustments. We also support initiatives to respond to the marketplace. We support expansion of existing programs to meet the demand for more nurses, business graduates, especially graduates with skills for our global economy. We support funding to start up applied doctoral programs and high quality applied research. When these programs were passed two years ago, it was envisioned that they would be funded through tuition and the state appropriations generated through enrollment. However, since then the legislature repealed the enrollment funding under the state funding formula statute. Therefore we need to seek special appropriations to fund these programs and get them off the ground. If the legislature does not fulfill its statutory obligation, this Board of Trustees will have to make some very painful decisions. Finally, we would support a major initiative for repair and replacement and to upgrade critical infrastructure, especially IT. For years, legislators have pushed for more on-line education. Faculty have responded to that challenge, and have been on the forefront of developing and offering many classes and entire programs on-line. Integration of on-line learning into traditional programs has also ballooned. But MnSCU’s technological infrastructure has not been able to keep up with demand. It is in danger of being overwhelmed and crashing. We need a major investment to expand capacity and keep us on the cutting edge.
The task forces MnSCU put together to develop budget recommendations came up with recommendations that in general reflect our major concerns—particularly with respect to inflation and quality improvements. We hope that you will honor their recommendations in the request you send to the next governor and legislature.
Many presentations today have included reference to the final report of the Commission on Higher Education which was just released this week. I would like to point out to you that in it, U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings says, "American universities have been the incubators of great ideas, the birthplaces of great inventions, and the testing grounds of great individuals." Thank you.