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.
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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. Ron Wilson, a
mittee. “We have gone :
We use it as a guide, not a Bible.’
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