ASU President Lattie Coor has pledged to protect the University from further state budget cuts imminent in the face of Arizona's fiscal crisis this year.
"My single most important task is to ensure that state budget cutting doesn't do the University more harm than it already has," Coor said of his final semester as ASU president. Coor will retire June 30 after a 12-year career at ASU's helm.
Protecting the universities' share of an already drained state budget will prove more challenging than ever for university officials. So far, ASU, NAU and UA have suffered $16 million in cuts since the Legislature slashed university funding by 4.56 percent in December.
"It's very clear that the cuts we took were permanent ones," Coor said in an interview last week.
Balancing the Arizona budget will prove a difficult task in the face of revenue shortfalls for 2003 that are estimated at amounts upward of $850 million. Gov. Jane Hull called an emergency legislative session to begin Jan. 29 to slash more than $200 million from Arizona's budget.
"It should be balanced ... without crippling our universities, community colleges and state agencies," Hull said in her Jan. 14 State of the State address.
But despite her words, state university funds are in the red zone again. The Legislature threatened Tuesday to use the new revenues from last year's tuition increases at ASU, NAU and UA to ease next year's budget deficit.
The Joint Legislative Budget Committee devised strategies to trim more than $1.8 billion from the state budget, which would include taking $16.3 million Arizona universities received in tuition hikes last year.
Those tuition revenues are normally set aside for student aid and university improvements.
Gary Stuart, of the Arizona Board of Regents, said the JLBC's report is an unwise fiscal policy.
"It is fundamentally unfair to students," he said.
According to the JLBC proposal, Arizona would re-appropriate the approximately $16 million paid by ASU, NAU and UA students in higher tuition last year for general state funding needs. Nearly $9 million of tuition collected from students at the three ASU campuses last year would be absorbed into the general fund to offset revenue shortages.
In addition, $1.1 million set aside by ABOR for student financial assistance would be usurped.
"It would be like using gas tax to pay for athletic scholarships at ASU; it doesn't make sense," Stuart said. "Tuition is a sum that has already been paid for by the students of the state of Arizona to advance their education, not to build a new highway."
Stuart plans to oppose the state Legislature's claim to the university's funds. "I will be shocked if ABOR doesn't do something about this," he said.
ABOR will set tuition April 25.
If the Legislature decides to use the earmarked tuition revenues as a budget fix when it convenes, Stuart said the damage to ASU and the other state universities will be immense.
"It's likely to be as divisive and harmful to students, professors, parents and politicians as anything I've seen recently," Stuart said.
Reach the reporter at katie.petersen@asu.edu.
