by Katy Knapp
Daily Lobo
It looks like tuition and fees are going to go up by 6.11 percent next year.
A UNM Board of Regents committee unanimously approved the amount at a meeting on Monday.
The proposal has to be approved at the full regents board meeting today in the SUB at 1 p.m.
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Curt Porter, associate vice president of Planning, Budget and Analysis, brought four scenarios to the Finance and Facility committee meeting.
But it was a proposal from regent Raymond Sanchez that got voted through.
Under Sanchez's proposal, faculty salaries will be raised 4.25 percent. The amount set by the Legislature appropriated 4.5 percent go to faculty compensation. The proposal will allocate $450,000 toward employee health care.
Sanchez said he refused a tuition increase much more than 6 percent, because tuition has gone up 22 percent in the past two years.
"The faculty needs to take a look at what students have had to bear," Sanchez said.
Regents President Jamie Koch agreed with Sanchez and said he would not approve an increase above 6.2 percent.
University Libraries requested a 1 percent tuition increase to cover the costs of rising journal and book costs.
Porter was able to find money for the library through a $1.8 million equipments appropriation from the Legislature.
Camila Alire, dean of University Libraries, said receiving the funding without raising tuition was a surprise.
She said the public support from the six delegate groups at the Budget Summit helped get the library funding.
"I knew the tuition increase was a long shot," she said. "But the best part was being able to advocate the library and make it visible to the community."
The four proposals by Porter included a scenario that gave no extra money to pay for faculty promotions or health insurance premiums - that proposal had the lowest tuition and fees increase of 5.74 percent.
Another scenario, with a tuition and fees increase of 7.36 percent, gave $175,000 to faculty promotion and $900,000 to health insurance.
Two of the scenarios took money from the UNM Foundation to keep tuition costs lower.
In another scenario, $1.25 million would be taken out of donations to the University. If that were factored in to the base tuition increase of 5.3 percent to cover $3.5 million not funded by the Legislature, that would bring a tuition increase of 6.03 percent.
Regent Don Chalmers, who is not on the committee but attended the meeting, reiterated his concern about taking money from the foundation.
At the Budget Summit on March 31, Chalmers said large donors could see this as a tax on their gift, which could reduce donations in the future.
He told the committee he is concerned with cutting into foundation's scholarship funds and donations going to specific programs.
"I'm trying to be financially responsible," he said. "The foundation would not look favorably upon this."
Chalmers said he is sensitive to students wanting to keep tuition low.
But raising tuition, without dipping into foundation dollars, will mean more money for UNM in the long run, he said.
"We have to invest in tomorrow as well," he said.
In the end, proposals to take money from the foundation were rejected.
