Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 24, 1995 TAG: 9501240119
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: Medium
Republican legislators are calling for an exclusively agricultural program. But the agency has spent two years trying to move more toward helping families and the environment, as directed by both the Wilder and Allen administrations.
Most recently, the request came this summer from Finance Secretary Paul Timmreck - as well as Gov. George Allen's budget plan last month.
Virginia Tech President Paul Torgersen outlined the dilemma to members of the House Appropriations Committee on Monday, at a showing of Virginia's college and university presidents who hope to see legislators restore $47.5 million that Allen has proposed cutting from higher education this year.
In a unique show of force, all of the presidents have signed on to legislation to restore those proposed cuts and add nearly $50 million to restore leftover cuts from the Wilder years and other programs.
Tech's extension and agricultural research programs, hit with $14.5 million in cuts, would lose more than 400 positions, Torgersen said. Up to six of 12 agricultural experiment stations from around the state would close, and two 4-H centers, serving 36,000 to 120,000 children in 4-H clubs, also would close, he said.
Torgersen's pleas for the Extension Service, administered by Virginia Tech, were apart from those of other presidents, all of whom focused on the economic-development boost that comes from healthy colleges and universities.
``The facts are these: Virginia's colleges, which have done so much for so many, are in danger - danger of losing their quality, their character and their competitive edge,'' said Timothy Sullivan, president of The College of William and Mary.
``My message on behalf of Virginia's university presidents is straightforward: We cannot - we simply cannot - have the best system of higher education in the nation by investing in the least,'' he said.
There were many comparisons with North Carolina, where the legislature continues to invest in the three universities near the booming Research Triangle area. In Virginia, meantime, almost $500 million has been cut from higher education since 1990 - and the state has watched companies such as Mercedes-Benz locate elsewhere.
Virginia's tuition has grown to the second-highest in the nation for in-state students, at an average of $3,714. By comparison, North Carolina charges $1,345.
Worse, presidents pointed out, if Allen's budget goes through as proposed, Virginia students for the first time next year will kick in more for their educations than the state.
The Allen cuts also threaten the recent cost-cutting restructuring plans submitted by all colleges and universities, particularly their flexibility to move money around inside the campus.
If a president moves money from one part of the operations to another, ``someone in Richmond concludes ... I don't need it,'' said George Mason University President George Johnson.
Said Sullivan: ``Restructuring was intended to be a road map for reinvestment in our institutions.''
``Further reductions in university budgets now - after we have made the tough judgments restructuring required - would be a clear breach of faith by the commonwealth, and transform restructuring from a healthy exercise in strategic thinking into a blueprint for the accelerated degradation of educational quality,'' he said.
Meantime, the presidents of the six colleges who lost $5.5 million for inadequate restructuring plans made a strong plea to have the funding restored. The money was cut after Allen announced this fall that schools that did not have acceptable restructuring plans by Dec. 1 would have their budgets cut.
But in the legislation that ordered restructuring, Dec. 1 was a deadline for a report to the General Assembly and the governor on the plans - not a deadline for cuts, presidents argued. All six schools' plans now have been approved.
Radford University could lose $1.6 million over restructuring.
``We were not tardy,'' said acting President Charles Owens, arguing that Radford has pursued its plan ``vigorously and enthusiastically.''
Legislators were largely sympathetic.
Del. Victor Thomas, D-Roanoke, called the cuts to higher education ``totally unacceptable ... absolutely out of the question.''
The amendment for higher education also is backed by the Virginia Business Higher Education Council, nearly 50 chief executive officers of major businesses around the state.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995
by CNB