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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 10, 1979)
V I Mfc BA I I ALION TUESDAY, APRIL 10, 1979 I UEODAY, AKHIL 10, 1979 Budget: Ever-changing, never-ending Page ~t By LIZ NEWLIN Battalion Staff The budget doesn’t look alive. One copy of the 14-volume udget for the Texas A&M Univer ity System just sits quietly in the eserve Room of the Library — omputer print-outs for all to see. But it is alive. For more than a year a whole host if people have planned and plotted, ussed and changed, what is in the udget. And it is still changing. Pieter Groot, Texas A&M Uni- ersity’s assistant vice president for cademic budgets, explains that it hanges even after final approval by e regents. A vital piece of lab equipment reaks and must be replaced. A new rofessor must be paid more than xpected. Things like that. The figures in the budget, hough, are changed even more — sually made smaller — as they are huffled among the departments, olleges, the System, the Texas gislature, and back again. The operating budget, the one in he library, is the product of two in- ependent budget-making cycles, hich operate simultaneously the pring before a legislative session. The two schemes yield: 1. a budget request to be submit- :ed to the Texas Legislature — what he Texas A&M University System ants, and 2. an operating budget — what exas A&M does with what it gets. The second process — generating n operating budget — is shorter nd simpler. Produced entirely for nd by the System, the operating udget is developed in about three onths. Writing the operating budget for he coming fiscal year (beginning ept. 1, 1979) will probably begin in ay, says Cliff Lancaster, an assis- ant vice chancellor for budgets. State legislators are still deciding ow much money the System will ;et for 1979-80 and 1980-81. Lan- :aster expects the System will know nough by May 1 to begin writing rewriting, really — the operating udget, using the budget requests nd legislative mandates as guides. That budget should be approved y the regents sometime in July, he xplains. The whole process — writing an perating budget — will be re- eated, beginning next January for ihe 1980-81 fiscal year. By that time the other budget iycle will also be under way — pre- aring the next Legislative Budget equest. That’s the process that :es more than IV2 years and seems involve half the State of Texas. The basis for 80-85 percent of exas A&M’s budget is the formula eveloped by the Coordinating oard, Texas College and Univer ity System (see story headlined udgetary language). Briefly, that ;ormula determines how much noney each university program hould get based on the number of tudents it serves. The rest of the budget involves Items not covered by the formula. These special items range from :ulty insurance to utilities to Texas &M’s cyclotron to building reno- ation. They are considered sepa- ately, and they often involve oliticking in the process. Legislators can decide, for in- tance, whether a university should get an extra $3 million to increase its library holdings. There’s no formula for that. But just figuring the ‘‘regular’’ items is not simple. The Texas for mula is one of the most complex in the nation, says Dr. R. W. Steen, di rector of formula study for the Coordinating Board. Earlier this year he completed research on how other states calculate their univer sity budgets. His report should be ready sometime this month, he says. “Texas’ formula is considerably more complicated than most other states’. It meets the needs of indi vidual institutions better,” reports Steen, who taught history here for 23 years before joining the Coor dinating Board. “It allocates the same kind of money for the same kind of work.” For example, liberal arts programs, whether they are at Texas A&M or Blinn College, receive departmen tal operating funds at the rate of $1.47 per undergraduate student credit hour (SCH). The rate changes with the cost of the program, not with the political pull of the school. Using that same example, engineering programs at both schools receive $16.59 per SCH. The Coordinating Board has decided that departmental costs — which include lab equipment — are higher for engineering programs than liberal arts programs. But only about half the states use a formula system, Steen says. The New York University System, one of the largest in the country, does not; instead, the regents’ recom mendations are forwarded to the State Legislature. Like New York, the Legislature here has a big say in the budget — even the formula. The Legislative Budget Board this year trimmed the Coordinating Board formula from a net 6.4 per cent increase over current spending to a 5.1 percent increase. At Texas A&M the difierence was about $1 million for next fiscal year. The LBB recommendation is about $83 million; the University’s request, before the formula was strictly applied, was about $102 mil lion. It seems that the farther the budget goes, the smaller it gets. Universities, however, have sev eral opportunities to defend their special items and to request more than the formula allows. Two sets of hearings are particu larly important: hearings before the staffs of the LBB and the Governor’s Office of Budget and Planning (GOB), and hearings before the Legislature itself. The staffs of the LBB and the GOB — not the politicians them selves — hear budget requests the summer before the legislative ses sion. Last August, representatives from all parts of the Texas A&M Sys tem came to the Memorial Student Center to justify their budgets — especially their special items. Dr. John Alexander, a budget ex aminer for the LBB, was at the hear ing. He is responsible for budgets of all the state universities and col leges. He says the hearings are useful to get more information for the GOB and the LBB. Although staffers don’t have discretion over formula items, they can promote — or dis courage — special items. But even if the University and the staffer want a particular program to receive more money, Alexander points out, the legislators on the LBB can veto it. One observer remarked, though, that if a special item is included in the final LBB recommendation, it’s as good as funded. The last chance the University has to add items to its budget is in hearings before the Senate Finance Committee and the House Approp riations Committee. Administrators, with the help of friendly legislators, can add entire programs and increase funding in the last days before the appropria tions bill is written — no matter what the formula says. Texas A&M’s hearing before the Senate commit tee was late last month; the House hearing was Thursday. Neither house has written its general appropriations bill, and it will probably be May before either does. Texas A&M officials are out wardly worried that this tight budget year will “squeeze Army.” That may be true. Comptroller Bob Bullock has predicted that the state’s surplus will be smaller than anticipated. And that means budget cuts. But Texas A&M should do all right. Its list of “friendly legislators” is long and impressive. The legislators from Brazos County are Bill Presnal, chairman of the House Appropriations Commit tee, and Bill Moore, dean of the Se nate. Both are Aggies, especially during budget time, and both are powerful. Other Ags include House Speaker Bill Clayton and A.R. “Babe’ Schwartz, the veteran liberal senator from Galveston, home of Moody College. In all, more than 15 Aggies are in the Legislature. And that doesn’t hurt. With this coupoi and get a second OSLER ou can order a pair of prescription glasses (of less) WfcEIs! EVARDOmCIA* 15 Osier Bryan, HURRY! Sale $Tm*mJLppf!9th A ends Ape# ffth. Budgetary language By LIZ NEWUN Battalion Staff Budgeting uses a vocabulary all its own, or at least it does in Texas. Here are some of the agencies and terms intimately involved in the process: Base Period: The three semesters on which the next biennium’s number of student credit hours is estimated. The base period used this time is summer and fall 1978 and Spring 1979. The Coordina ting Board has declared that enrollment on the 12th class day is the official count for the semester. At Texas A&M the Office of Planning estimates items the base period doesn’t cover, like the size of the freshman class. The Coordinating Board, Texas College and University System: The governor appoints the 18 members to six-year terms. The board makes policy for state colleges and universities. It recommends the basic formula that generates about 80 percent of the school’s budgets. This year, for example, it figured a formula that would produce a net 6.4 percent increase over the current budget. Formula: The mechanical way in which 80-85 percent of Texas A&M’s budget is produced. It assigns a rate to every regular function of a university. Then the rate is multiplied by the number of student credit hours that will “use” a service, estimated from the base period. Governor’s Office of Budget and Planning (GOB): The governor also recommends a budget, and this year Gov. Bill Clements an nounced it well after the LBB guides were out. The Legislature considers the differences between this budget and the LBB ver sion, but it generally prefers to use its own. Legislative Budget Board (L the speaker of the house, legislators. It makes recon be, based on work by the LBB staff budget examiners e work. The LBB itself form the core of the appn Legislature. “We try to says Rep. 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