UMaine to seek 4 percent tuition hike

ORONO – The University of Maine will request a 4 percent tuition hike as part of a plan to save $5 million, the interim chief financial officer said Monday. The hike is estimated to increase revenues by $1.6 million.

The largest chunk of savings – $3.2 million – would come from leaving staff and faculty positions vacant and cutting travel, materials and professional development in a number of departments, according to Chief Financial Officer Mark Anderson. Those include the departments of business, engineering, education and human development, liberal arts and sciences, biochemistry and molecular biology, and natural sciences, forestry and agriculture.

Also, a controversial cut in the university’s day care center budget was partially restored after UM officials met with a group of concerned parents, staff and other UM employees.

In light of increases in the University of Maine System’s health insurance premiums and salaries, all seven campuses had to share in a plan to reallocate $14 million. Each campus assumed a share of the burden based on the number of full-time employees.

The University of Maine in Orono took the biggest hit as it sought to transfer more than 3 percent of its $147 million budget to help cover increases in employee benefits, compensation and insurances.

The University of Maine System board of trustees will vote on the final budget proposal in May.

The proposed increase in tuition brings the cost of each credit hour to $146 for in-state students and to $415 for out-of-state students.

A tuition increase would have been in store even without the budget crunch although it could be a percent higher than it would have been, Anderson said earlier this month.

In other budget moves, $542,390 would be taken from research, $406,521 from student affairs, $564,580 from finance and administration, $77,486 from development, $43,306 from the president’s office and $69,495 from financial management.

While no layoffs are planned, the cuts translate to less fund raising and fewer library books, Anderson said. Professors will have to find other ways to pay for their research projects, he said.

Concerning the day care facility, Anderson recommended reducing the proposed cut by more than half – from $122,000 to $60,000 – after he met with the members of the Committee on Children’s Center Funding, a group of parents, staff and other UM employees.

Anderson, who said he came away with “a greater understanding” of the Children’s Center needs, recommended several ways to offset the cut. He proposed that the rental charge for the center’s space at University Park be suspended, that a teacher aide-assistant position remain unfilled, and that more work study students be hired since that program pays a certain part of their wages.

The new reduction has Gary Quimby, director of the center, breathing a sigh of relief. The original cut would have required the day care to raise fees that some parents wouldn’t have been able to afford, he said.

But the new proposal “has allowed us to get on with life, to buy time to study the graduated fee scale based on income, and to try new recruitment efforts with [work study] students,” he said Monday after day care parents met with Anderson to ask questions about the final version of the budget.

Alice Bruce, an associate professor of chemistry who leaves her child at the day care, said after the meeting that she remained disappointed with the budget.

“I’m still not sure what the leaders of the campus feel about the value of child care,” said Bruce, a member of the Committee on Children’s Center Funding.

That group recommended a $19,000 budget cut and requested approval for the Children’s Center to work with the UM Development Office to establish an endowment. It also proposed the creation of a Child Care Committee to oversee the day care and other UM programs that provide children’s services.

“The $60,000 cut says that [the administration] doesn’t want to get rid of the day care, but it also says that it’s not really that valued,” Bruce said.

The administration doesn’t seem to realize the importance of child care to recruiting and retaining good faculty, staff and students, she said.

Bruce also took exception to Anderson’s budget proposal which she said “makes it sound” as though the committee endorsed his recommendations.

“We didn’t say any of this,” said Bruce.

But at least now “there’s a better understanding all around” about the value of the day care center and how it operates and who it serves, she said.

Meanwhile, Anderson said the committee’s recommendations were “long-term answers” that he would discuss with Provost Robert Kennedy.