Essential building projects for the SIUC campus can now begin, SIU President Ted Sanders said Wednesday, announcing the Illinois Board of Higher Education’s lower-than-requested funding recommendations.

SIUC ranked 15th on the IBHE’s capital improvement priority list with its $3.1 million request to repair the heating and cooling pipes in Anthony Hall, which are more than 30 years old. SIU received $17 million for capital projects, far from the $55.2 million it requested.

Despite the difference, Sanders said the IBHE’s recommendations are reasonable.

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There’s not this need to take a sharp knife and pare things back, because I think they’ve done their job pretty well, Sanders said.

Sanders said if the recommendations pass the legislature, improvements such as completion of the Communications Building will take place.

The building was built 40 years ago and part of it was left unfinished until, hopefully, we see this appropriation, he said.

All 12 Illinois public universities, including SIUC, will receive appropriation increases from fiscal year 1998. These translate into a 10-percent increase for library materials, a 6.8-percent increase to fully fund the State Universities Retirement System and a 3-percent increase for salaries.

SIU had requested a 5-percent increase for salaries to offset a 3-percent cost-of-living increase. The lower amount is disappointing, said James E. Sullivan, president of the faculty association.

We cannot retract outstanding faculty on these salaries salaries which barely estimate the cost of living increase, Sullivan said. The IBHE needs to look at us with a different eye in the future.

The overall recommendation for fiscal year 1999 was $292.9 million, an increase of $12 million from 1998. To fund the increase, the IBHE recommended a $9.3 million, or 4.6 percent, increase in state money for SIU, and the remaining $2.7 million will come from tuition income.

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Now that the recommendations are in, Gov. Jim Edgar and the General Assembly must approve the higher education budgets in the spring, which may be a daunting task because of the Senate Appropriations Committee.

Sen. (Steven) Rauschenberger (R-Elgin) is a very hands-on Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and you can bet he will look very carefully at what has been submitted by us and more importantly what will eventually be submitted by the governor, Sanders said. He will look at the specifics very carefully and may adjust with his own imprint on the budget once again like he did last year.

While passing the committee may prove an obstacle, the governor’s acceptance should be easier to obtain.

I think the reason Gov. Edgar has accepted their recommendations in the past is because they’ve been realistic, Sanders said. They’ve reflected needs of higher education. They have a strong dose of reality with what they actually send on forward to the governor. I think they’ve done their job pretty well.

Hopefully, the governor will see that in the same way he has in the past six or seven years and support their recommendation, although there are no guarantees of that.