President Sally Mason started Thursday’s state Board of Regents meeting with a spirit of giving.
Along with the University of Northern Iowa and Iowa State University presidents, she declined to accept the $80,000 performance-based bonus in her yearly salary.
Unfortunately, students might soon have to be generous with their own money, because the regents voted 5-4 in support of the $100 tuition surcharge for the spring. The final vote on the surcharge will come in December.
The Editorial Board continues to oppose this surcharge. We should cut six-figure salaries and furloughing affluent administrators before we discuss tuition surcharges.
President Mason delivered the UI’s plans to cut $23.5 million from the university’s general fund. The plan doesn’t call for temporary layoffs, pay cuts, or, at worst, permanent layoffs. Instead, officials propose using the $13 million provided by federal stimulus money to forgo additional cuts.
The university’s plan also proposes reducing spending and building renewal by $5.1 million and decreasing faculty retirement funds by 2 percent. Mason deemed this a “progressive approach in which those who earn more will give up more, and those who earn less will give up less.”
We applaud the faculty’s involvement in harnessing an equitable solution to a dire set of circumstances. Students must understand that faculty at the UI are giving a great deal for our university to provide the kind of quality education we expect. We understand their burden and respect it.
But we cannot in good conscience support a tuition surcharge that leaves little room for students to budget and prepare for changes. In addition, we believe it’s unconscionable for upper-level administrator not to take a pay cut when students may have to fork over an additional $100 this spring.
Mason’s remarks on Thursday indicated there would be a detrimental effect if regents don’t approve the surcharge.
“If there was no surcharge, we would have to tell individual departments to dig deeper to make further cuts,” she said.
Students understand that we should share the responsibility for helping our university out in this tough time. But the plan does not meet a standard of fairness.
Mason took the initiative to decrease her pay for the year. If we follow her premise of “earn more, give more,” then shouldn’t upper-level administrators give a little more too? The Editorial Board proposes that the top 5 percent of earners at the UI take a pay cut of 10 percent and be on furlough as well. It makes more prudent fiscal and egalitarian sense to cut from the top than punish the people at the bottom.
Families and students across Iowa budget their finances for their year based on the fees set forth by the regents. The surcharge would undercut their ability to plan long term.
We had hoped that the UI Student Government would understand this and follow ISU and UNI student governments in opposing this proposal. Current UISG President Michael Currie did the exact opposite, however.
“It’s not that I want to pay the $100,” he said. “It’s just one of the best options that we have to keep our quality education.”
We agree that our priorities should always be to increase the quality of our education. But students will be burdened with a huge tuition hike next year, and top administrators would be forced to shoulder a big enough burden under the UI’s plan.
Overall, we are proud of the work our university has done. Two years ago, it would have been incomprehensible to imagine such dire events such as the flood and budget cuts happening in such a short time. Our resolve has been tested, but we have met the challenge.
We support three of the segments of Mason’s budget proposal but strongly urge the university to look to alternative measures — instead of the surcharge — to fill the budget holes. For that solution, top administrators need only look in the mirror.