Biggest schools may have to share their wealth, regents say

The state Board of Regents discussed the possibility Wednesday of playing Robin Hood with Montana’s colleges and universities, taking some of the tuition generated by the state’s flagship schools and distributing it among the smaller institutions as a way of spreading the system’s diminishing wealth.

By CAROL BRADLEY
Tribune Staff Writer

The regents also suggested the state’s bigger universities might need to hire more part-time, or adjunct, faculty to save money. The panel could go so far as to factor adjuncts into the formula used to decide how much money goes to each school, Commissioner of Higher Education Dick Crofts said.

The number of adjuncts each school would be expected to hire would vary, Crofts said. For example, the University of Montana-Western in Dillon, a small four-year school, "would probably have a much harder time finding part-time faculty than the Helena College of Technology," he said.

Regents bandied about the ideas during an informal discussion preceding their bimonthly meeting on Thursday. They’re open to any suggestion for making do in the wake of $12.4 million in state spending cuts mandated by the state Legislature.

Lawmakers made those and other cuts to overcome a $59 million deficit in state coffers.

Not all of the regents think the university system is taking it on the chin. Regent John Mercer of Polson, a former state lawmaker, argued the system has enjoyed "huge increases" in spending. He acknowledged that students have borne most of them in the form of tuition.

Requiring the bigger schools to share their proceeds is appropriate, Mercer added. He objected to others’ description of the practice as "backfill." He called it "paying their fair share."

Despite the money woes, regents will likely vote today on whether to give raises of 4 percent or more to top executives and a number of faculty and staff.

Faculty are likely to protest any increased reliance on part-time instructors. Critics claim adjuncts are an easy way for universities to hire cheap labor with no job security or benefits.

UM faculty staged protests two winters ago when dozens of adjuncts were told without warning their services would not be needed for the spring semester. A number of the adjuncts have since been rehired.

Mary Moe, dean of the MSU-Great Falls College of Technology, said she’s relying on adjuncts more than she would like. Certain programs in particular need a basis of support that only full-time faculty can provide, she said.

Yet where budgets are concerned the bad news is going to keep coming, Crofts predicted. He said the system will probably see a 7 percent to 9 percent increase in spending in fiscal 2003, but state support — which exceeded 75 percent in 1980 — is likely to dip to 43 percent. It was 48 percent this year.

Students paid an average of 12 percent more in tuition in 2001-2002 and face a similar hike for 2002-2003.

Absent additional revenue by fiscal 2004, "significant personnel reductions" are likely, Crofts warned.

UM and Montana State University in Bozeman already have helped out the smaller schools. UM gave $150,000 to Montana Tech to help offset $345,000 in cuts the school of mines faced as a result of unexpected cutbacks.

A tuition surcharge, which averaged $38 more apiece systemwide last fall and again this spring, will make up $158,000 more at Tech, Chancellor Frank Gilmore said. The school still needs to cut $35,000 to get out of the red.

Again, it’s the flagship schools that will be expected to shoulder the biggest cuts. The MSU-Great Falls College of Technology is slated to receive 10 percent more in funding next year.

Legislators have yet to provide funding for the second year of the school’s new dental hygiene program, however, which worries her, Moe said.

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