by Katy Knapp
Daily Lobo
Jamie Koch, president of UNM's Board of Regents, said he is concerned the University will not get enough funding next year.
"In two years, we've raised tuition and fees by 21 percent," he said in an interview Wednesday. "We're not going to be able to raise it like we did in the past."
Koch spoke to a room full of UNM administrators and executives during a leadership roundtable at Los Poblanos Inn on July 15.
Tuition and fees were raised by 12 percent last year and 9.9 percent this year.
"We have been very fortunate with the student body these past few years," Koch said at the roundtable.
Koch said next year's fee increase will go toward repaying the $125 million bond debt. It will also be tough to get money from the New Mexico Legislature because it will be an election year and politicians will want to keep spending down, he said.
UNM received about $7.2 million from the state Legislature as part of the University's $1.57 billion budget for the 2005-06 fiscal year.
He told the group he was also concerned about a bonus plan that was presented to the regents and approved last month.
The performance-based plan presented by UNM President Louis Caldera stated executives would receive a bonus of up to 20 percent of their salaries for high achievements.
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"We are going to have a problem with bonuses," Koch said. "People who got them deserve them, and I'm not suggesting we take them away, but feedback from others tells me there is a problem."
Caldera said Wednesday that the plan was a pilot project
"We wanted to see how well it would work," he said. "It was very much experimental."
The plan was intended to be implemented and evaluated for its effectiveness to determine whether it could be extended to other senior administrators at UNM. According to the plan, the University could change or discontinue the plan if it did not meet its objectives.
Some of the objectives the plan hoped to achieve were improving productivity, tieing wages to job performance and supporting recruitment and retention of top performers.
Caldera said he plans on asking the regents to reconsider passing the plan during the August board meeting.
"There are good reasons for creating a bonus program, but the timing might be bad," Caldera said, referring to the lack of funding UNM could be facing in the upcoming year.
Leaders at UNM have been meeting to discuss the bonus plan and asking whether it makes sense to implement at UNM, he said. Caldera said he will ask the regents to take the plan off the table, which he said they were likely to do.
The bonuses given to executives last month will remain, Caldera said. He said a bonus plan for main executives at UNM is in place and will not be affected.
Among the six top executives at UNM who received bonuses last month, David Harris, vice president for administration received $41,000 and Rudy Davalos, director of athletics received $25,000 based on the performance of the UNM men's and women's basketball teams last year.
Koch said the discussion at Friday's meeting was meant to be informative to the leaders of UNM.
"It's going to be difficult in the legislation to get funding," he said. "It was important for everyone to have a reality check."
Caldera agreed and said the University needs to look at other ways of raising money.
"We must do a better job of raising more of our own resources," he said. "And we need to do a better job of trying to control costs."
He said next year's legislative session may be tough, but not impossible.
"Obviously the regents know the governor and legislators and will have a good feel of how things will go," he said. "That's a sobering, important message for us to hear. But that's six months away, so a lot could happen in terms of what conditions the state will be in and how the economy will be."
