UNM President Chris Garcia said during the Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday that he has met with Gov. Bill Richardson recently and will support a two percent increase in staff compensation.
"There seems to be at least a hopeful spirit that with the new administration will come better things for the state of New Mexico and for higher education in particular," Garcia said.
Garcia also said he met with the legislative finance committee, which has recommended a two percent increase in compensation for faculty and staff. The New Mexico Commission on Higher Education has recommended a four percent increase, while the governor has recommended three percent.
"Our best chance is probably to support the legislative finance committee's recommendation," Garcia said, adding that he would be supporting 100 percent full formula funding, but that could change as the legislative session goes on.
"With the new funding formula there is just nothing there yet and with this approach we can deal with that," Garcia said. "We're just trying to figure out what the best deal is for us. The bigger total we can get, the better for us."
He added that he has reminded the governor that UNM faculty actually took a cut in pay last year and that this was not acceptable to the University.
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Faculty Senate President Beverly Burris also talked to the Senate about the possibility of creating a new faculty member position on the regents and said she discussed the possibility with Richardson. Burris said Richardson has pledged to put an active faculty member on the CHE, which she said is a real step forward for UNM faculty.
"We'll see how much steam we pick for (the faculty regent)," Burris said.
However, she said that it would be a lengthy process as faculty regent legislation would have to pass through the state Senate and House of Representatives and then go before voters to amend the state constitution. She noted that currently the faculty does not hold a great deal of weight with the regents. She said Richardson planned to advise current regents to hold town hall meetings in order to get to know the University better.
Burris said she also spoke to Richardson about the recent regent appointments he made and asked him to appoint regents who have first hand knowledge about higher education.
"I'm guardedly optimistic," Burris said.
