House plan would cut UNC's budget by 3.4%

System would suffer while public-school jobs saved

By: JournalNow Staff | THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: May 28, 2010

RALEIGH

More public-school teachers would be protected from layoffs and the UNC system would take a bigger financial hit under a House budget plan approved yesterday by a key committee that diverges from a spending proposal offered by the Senate.

The education subcommittee, which proposes spending for more than half of the state's budget, would use $90 million in N.C. Lottery profits beyond what the Senate recommended in the budget it approved last week to hire teachers to reduce class sizes in early grades.

The lottery money, most of which would come from reserves and $73 million in higher-than-anticipated net revenues for the next fiscal year, would prevent an additional 1,635 teaching and teaching-assistant positions from being eliminated statewide, said Rep. Rick Glazier, D-Cumberland, a co-chairman of the education subcommittee.

Public schools "should be in a position where there should not be any additional classroom personnel that will lose their jobs" from any additional cuts, he said.

The $10.7 billion education plan, which will be incorporated into the full $18.9 billion spending proposal expected to be debated by the full House Appropriations Committee next week, requires UNC campuses and administration to find $239 million in spending cuts for the coming school year.

The UNC reductions, which the campuses can decide how to make, are $139 million more than the amount the legislature had already directed the system to cut for the year starting July 1 in the two-year spending plan approved last summer. The Senate budget approved last week only sought $50 million more in reductions, or a total of $150 million.

UNC system President Erskine Bowles said that the cuts would result in the loss of 1,700 jobs and could lead the 17 campuses to limit enrollment.

"In all of our previous analyses, we never imagined that reductions would reach this level," Bowles said in a statement. "This level of cuts would force us to reduce the numbers of students that we can accept on our campuses."

Glazier pointed out a study that showed North Carolina ranks second among states in spending on higher education as a percentage of personal income.

Overall, the House would cut the state budget for the UNC system already in place for the coming year by 3.4 percent. The Senate's budget kept funding for UNC flat. Weeks of negotiations are expected as the two chambers try to work out a compromise budget agreement to present to Gov. Bev Perdue before July 1. The full House will vote on its budget by the end of next week.