by Katy Knapp
Daily Lobo
The UNM Board of Regents unanimously approved a tuition and fees increase of 6.11 percent on Tuesday.
This came after the regents urged the budget office to keep tuition 6 percent or below at Monday's finance and facilitices committee meeting. The committee set the increase at 6.11 percent for approval at Tuesday's full regents meeting.
Curt Porter presented the proposal to the regents.
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"I thank you for the slack to go a little beyond 6 percent," he told the board.
Faculty and staff will receive the state-mandated compensation increase of 4.5 percent.
Salaries will increase by 4.25 percent, with the rest going to benefits. But only 50 percent of the $900,000 needed to pay for employee benefits will be paid for by the Legislature.
The other $450,000 for benefits will be paid for out of tuition.
Student Maria Ortiz said she doesn't mind a tuition increase if it the Lottery Success Scholarship rises with it.
"As long as it keeps covering it, I'm OK with it," she said.
Student Stephen Karaffa said raising tuition might be necessary, but the University should start looking at other ways to find money. Karaffa said he agrees with a tuition hike to help fund new programs.
"But it's also a pain for students because that just means more (students) pay," he said. "So I guess it's both good and bad."
The University also needed $175,000 for faculty promotions, and $180,000 in health insurance for graduate assistants.
That left a funding gap of $805,000 to be filled by a tuition hike. That amount equals an increase of 0.86 percent, which was added onto the 5.25 percent tuition increase the University needed to cover a $3.5 million funding gap from formula funding it didn't receive from the Legislature. Formula funding pays utilities and risk management costs.
To help cover these funds, Porter got $251,248 from the central University's budget to go toward risk management premiums. Another $277,800, from the same budget, will go toward utilities.
Porter said allocating this money will probably require a mid-year budget review.
Porter also got the tuition increase at a minimum by finding money to help fund University Libraries through an equipments appropriation through the Legislature. The library was asking for $750,000 to help pay for the rising costs of academic journals and books.
The budget office gave the library $600,000 from the appropriation. The other $150,000 came out of the provost's budget.
The hike brings a tuition and fees increase to 28 percent over the past three years.
Student Whitney Morrill said the hike isn't a shock.
"It seems like every year at this time we hear about a new increase," she said. "It's really frustrating, but it's not really a surprise."
