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Fee increases likely in latest UC budget

By Daily Bruin Staff

Oct. 6, 1996 9:00 p.m.

By Phillip Carter
Daily Bruin Staff

The 1997-98 systemwide budget for the University of California
will include a 10 percent student fee increase when released next
week, UC officials said Friday.

Confirming the plans for the increase, UC spokesman Mike
Lassiter said the increase was built into the budget as part of the
four-year "compact" with Gov. Pete Wilson, which assumed that the
UC would raise its fees each year in return for more state
funding.

"The last two years, as we went through the budget process, the
Legislature and Governor have bought out the fee increase,"
Lassiter said. "We would hope if state funds were available, we
could avoid a fee increase as we did in the past."

During the last two years, UC student fees have remained
constant, following a five-year period from 1990 to1995 when
student fees rose 135 percent to their present level of $4,126 per
year.

In those two years, the regents initially budgeted for a fee
increase only to have it bought out by the legislature or governor
at the last minute.

This past year, Wilson’s administration announced in January
that it would give the UC enough money to prevent a student fee
hike, as well as provide for faculty and staff pay raises. The
regents in 1995 had also initially built a fee increase into their
budget, just as they are doing this year.

A senior Wilson administration official explained that the UC’s
state funding may again change so that a fee increase wouldn’t be
necessary, depending on the actual amounts of revenue that flow
into state coffers this year.

But those numbers aren’t determined until December or January,
well after the initial UC budget is passed, he added.

"In November, we will have finished up our economic forecasts on
what the economic picture looks like," said H.D. Palmer of
California’s Department of Finance. "We will determine what
resources we have available, and any decision regarding fees will
be something that the governor will consider probably in December
or January."

Whether the state has enough money come this December to make
that offer to the UC is still unknown. But Palmer noted that state
revenues are currently running higher than expected.

"As of the end of August, we were running $186 million above
forecast," said Palmer, adding that the governor had the discretion
to spend these funds on programs – from education to public safety
– as he saw fit.

Given the financially healthy states of the UC system and
California government as compared with five years ago, several
regents questioned the wisdom of planning for a fee increase this
early in the budget process.

"I’m not happy about assuming that (in the current budget),"
Regent Clair Burgener said. "I would do anything I could to avoid
that – I didn’t think we were still in a financial crisis."

In past years, fee increases have been given to the Board of
Regents as an ultimatum: either raise fees or suffer a decline in
quality for the UC system. Burgener said he didn’t like that kind
of deliberation, but would not vote for another fee hike unless it
was absolutely essential to maintaining the UC’s quality.

"I would resist it at all costs, unless someone could prove to
me that the alternative would be worse, (such as) reduced
enrollment or cuts in salaries," said Burgener, adding "we went a
long time without any faculty pay raise, and we’re finally starting
to catch up."

But at least one other regent expressed concern over the
inherent disparity in giving pay raises while raising student fees
at the same time.

"For the administration to take such a huge pay increase and at
the same time tell students that there is not enough money in the
university and that they are going to have to pay more in order to
go here … that I cannot support," said Student Regent Jess
Bravin.

But despite concerns about the fee increase, many regents said
it was unlikely to be implemented because of the strong opposition
in Sacramento to charging students more for attending the public
university.

Regent Meredith Khachigian, who has led several UC lobbying
expeditions to the capitol in Sacramento in the past few years,
said that the legislators were particularly receptive to keeping UC
student fees low.

"I think like everybody else, they want to keep the highest
possible education at the lowest possible price," she said.

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