Minutes of the
NIU Board of Trustees
LEGISLATION, AUDIT AND
EXTERNAL AFFAIRS COMMITTEE

April 22, 1999

Since this Committee last met, much has changed in Springfield, Chair Moser said. A new Governor and the General Assembly, which has had almost 35% turnover since our Board of Trustees was established in 1996, were inaugurated in January. More than ever before, Northern Illinois University needs to continue its efforts to educate state policymakers in Springfield and Washington about the uniqueness of its three-fold mission in teaching, research and public service. In February, the Office of State and Federal Relations, in conjunction with the Center for Governmental Studies and the Division of Continuing Education, delivered a one-day training workshop for all district office personnel for state legislators around the state. The workshop was held in Chicago, and over 70 legislators sent their staffs to attend.

Agenda Item 5.a. - Resolution Recognizing "NIU Day at the State House" Contributions
Two days after the workshop for legislative staff, Northern hosted its first "Exhibition of Excellence" at the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield. Over 100 NIU staff, faculty and students were involved in putting together this very successful one-day effort. The displays that lined the main corridor of the State Capitol were set up along the walls of the meeting room for Board members and the campus community to review. Chair Moser personally thanked Melanie Magara, Director of Public Affairs, for overseeing the content, design and construction of the displays.

Later in the day, several members of the Board of Trustees, faculty and staff were paired into lobbying teams and given lists of 4-6 legislators to visit regarding specific issues and programs at NIU. Fanned out across the Capitol, these teams contacted about 70 legislators in a matter of 2˝ hours. This effort had a tremendous impact for the day. The Board of Trustees then hosted a legislative reception at the State Library for the General Assembly with over 45 legislators attending. The Chair also personally thanked Ellen Andersen, Director of Special Events, who coordinated and directed the logistics for the day.

NIU's "Exhibition of Excellence" took almost a year of planning and coordination on the part of Kathy Swanson, Melanie Magara and Ellen Andersen, and the day came together flawlessly. Much was accomplished in communicating the exciting and innovative educational opportunities at NIU to the state legislature. Accountability has been the "buzz-word" in Springfield these last few years, Chair Moser said, and NIU must consistently demonstrate the excellent programs we offer to students for undergraduate, graduate and lifelong learning.

Chair Moser made a motion to approve a resolution expressing the Committee's and, ultimately, the full Board's, appreciation to the staff, faculty and students involved in making "NIU's Exhibition of Excellence" such an outstanding success. This event took a considerable amount of planning on the part of many, he said, and I think it is important to acknowledge that staff commitment and express our appreciation directly. Trustee Siegel seconded the motion. The motion was approved.

I was also in Springfield, Trustee Siegel said, and the response we had for Northern was tremendous. The legislature was very excited to see us. The many NIU people that participated were fantastic. They did an excellent job, and a lot of hard work. We received nothing but positive comments from everyone there, and people who were visiting. It is too bad all of those who went down are not present to hear this today, but hopefully they will read about it. I want to thank everyone for all of their hard work, Trustee Siegel concluded, and all the extra effort that no one else sees that we all know went into this.

Ms. Swanson announced that all of those named in the resolution had been invited to attend the afternoon Board Meeting, so most of them would be in the audience at that time to hear the Trustees’ comments directly.

Chair Moser asked Ms. Swanson to provide the committee with the latest update on substantive issues affecting the university, as well as the current status of budget negotiations.

Agenda Item 6.a.(1) - Substantive Issues
House Bill 1058 was introduced in a committee as an amendment on a Friday afternoon back in early March. It would have repealed the ability of the universities to allow tuition waivers for dependents of university employees. Current law indicates that if an employee has been at the university in the State Universities Retirement System (SURS) for seven years, a dependent is entitled to a 50% tuition waiver at any state school within Illinois for which they can qualify academically. When this legislation was introduced, university representatives immediately met with Representative Bugielski from Chicago. In addition, we worked very closely with the faculty, staff and UAC groups within the university to mount a grassroots effort to defeat this particular legislation. Andy Small and his operating staff circulated petitions, and the Faculty Senate wrote a letter. I am pleased to report to the Committee that because of the coordinated effort we mounted in a positive manner, Ms. Swanson said, we were able to convince Rep. Bugielski not to call his legislation for an actual vote on the House floor. The legislation died as of March 26 because it had not been acted on. I think this is an excellent example of coordination between faculty and staff to mount a positive lobbying effort.

The larger issue of procurement reform as it applies to public universities is still pending, Ms. Swanson said. There is no formal bill yet filed in Springfield to address those issues. On a larger scale, however, NIU filed its own legislation to protect the Continuing Education programming, including Business Industry Services and NIU’s regular Continuing Education Department. We filed this bill last year, passed it out of the House and agreed to hold it as part of an overall cleanup package on higher education procurement issues. Unfortunately, the cleanup package fell apart in the political negotiations that ensued thereafter, she said, and we are now back to filing our own legislation again. This bill passed out of the Senate by a vote of 56-0; it is now in the House Executive Committee. Several of the Trustees have been kind enough to lend their support on this legislation via letters to the Speaker. Right now the Speaker's decision is still pending on whether or not this legislation will be called forward for a vote. So, I would urge that the Board and this Committee continue to press the Speaker and the legislative leadership in Springfield for movement on this particular issue, Ms. Swanson said.

Another interesting piece of legislation, which the university has supported, is House Bill 325, the Public University Tuition Statement Act. This legislation would require universities to annually provide to undergraduate students a statement on their Bursar’s billing sheet showing the amount appropriated by the state to subsidize their tuition. And I think it is a very important piece of legislation, Ms. Swanson said. Right now, public higher education is extensively subsidized by the state, and, unfortunately, many taxpayers simply look at the bottom line they are paying on their tuition bill and do not necessarily think about how much state support has already gone into lowering that total to an affordable level for them. This would be a statewide initiative for all universities, and we would all be using the same number with an average subsidy. It will be calculated each year by the Board of Higher Education and put on only undergraduate tuition statements. Graduate student tuition statements are just too complicated, Ms. Swanson said, and the amount of graduate level funding from the state is so different at each institution. I think it will be something to make the taxpayers of Illinois a little more aware of the state's public higher education system, the amount of their tax dollars that go to support it, she continued, and the benefit that they are getting from the state when they do pay their tuition. It was assigned to the Senate Education Committee, picked up by Senator Burzynski, and passed from the committee unanimously as well.

Another issue brought to the Committee’s attention was Senate Bill 993, the tuition and fee waiver legislation, which was pending in the House Higher Education Committee. This is a rather onerous measure that if passed will require the universities to supply mandatory statements to each student that receives a waiver, Ms. Swanson said. Each and every student that receives a waiver, undergraduate and graduate, would have to fill out a statement indicating that they agree to publicly disclose their waiver, which is a potential conflict if not an outright violation of the federal privacy laws. NIU is working with the House sponsor on that legislation. After receiving a legal opinion on that issue from the university’s in-house counsel, George Shur, Ms. Swanson said she hoped that at the very least the university would be able to get an amendment. If not, perhaps consideration could be delayed on this issue until next year when the General Assembly has had a better chance to look at the potential area of conflict with the federal privacy laws.

Agenda Item 6.a.(2) - Allocation of the Governor's Fiscal Year 2000 Appropriated Budget
The university’s appropriations request, which is pending in Springfield, has been a rather large item to deal with this year from a management standpoint. Normally, under the system in the former Governor's Office, it was fairly standard procedure; but this year, it has been different. I wanted to draw the Committee's attention to that because there is a lot more flux in the budget at this point than there has been in the past four years since we have had a governing board of our own here at NIU, Ms. Swanson said. The university submits its requests for funding to the Board of Higher Education, and the Board of Higher Education then offers its recommendations to the Governor. At the Governor's level of funding, the university was slated for an approximate 4.8% increase, which was a very good increase for us, Ms. Swanson said. It was down slightly from what the Board of Higher Education had recommended, but still a good increase.

The Senate then normally goes into action and holds appropriation hearings. This year they held two appropriation hearings. The first was on deferred maintenance issues affecting all of the public universities, and all of the universities were called to testify about the extent of their deferred maintenance needs both on a priority level and on a general level. Northern's deferred maintenance needs on a priority level are about $36 million. Adding them all together collectively, they total just over $70 million just for NIU. Adding up all the figures that day, Ms. Swanson said, the total deferred maintenance needs for public higher education at the state university level was in excess of $800 million, a substantial amount of money. About two weeks later, the Senate held its regular appropriation hearings on the budgets. This year, each university has its own budget bill, which is contrary to past procedure as well. The Senate voted on each university's budget bill and passed it to the House. When they did so, they added an amendment, which basically took out the line items in the university’s normal appropriation format and put all of the money into one large lump sum. In addition to that, they funded at a different level than the Governor's request to the legislature. Northern's differential was $367,400 less than the Governor's level as a result of Senate funding. A chart on page 8 of the meeting materials gave a summary of how they arrived at that figure. I want to walk the Committee through this because this is a very important issue as we negotiate now in the House, Ms. Swanson said, and as we go into the final stage of budget negotiations with the legislative leadership in the next few weeks. To arrive at the Senate funding recommendations, the Senate went back to the FY99 operational base level of $101,459,000, and then they funded the university's first priority, cost and salary increases at 3%, which they funded in full. They also fully funded the recruitment and retention of NIU’s critical faculty and staff line, which is our equity line for faculty and staff, at one percent. So, basically, that is a 3% salary increase plus an additional one percent from the state, which will be matched by a one percent commitment from the university in internal reallocation. Then, they said that deferred maintenance was a significant priority of the university's, and they did not feel that the Board of Higher Education or the Governor had addressed the deferred maintenance issues in substantial detail. So, they developed a mathematical formula which resulted in Northern Illinois University receiving a $1.6 million line for deferred maintenance. In doing so, they zeroed out all of the new program spending. They created a situation where it was either/or. All the money for new programs for FY00, including the upgrade of the university’s Computer Science and MIS Department, IT programming, which was a critical issue for us, computer systems, etc., have been completely zeroed out under the Senate's plan, and all of that funding has gone into the deferred maintenance line. We then appeared before the House Appropriations Committee last week. Ms. Swanson said the House Appropriations Committee was very concerned by the Senate adjustments to the Governor's allocations. There seemed to be widespread sentiment in both the Democratic and Republican parties to initiate an amendment that would bring the budgets back to the Governor's funding level, including the lines that were funded at the Governor's request. There was also a sentiment that at all costs, IT and computer science type issues should be preserved in the FY00 budget process.

Finally, they also agreed that more attention should be given to the deferred maintenance issue, Ms. Swanson continued. They felt, at the committee level, in a bipartisan effort, that new money should be decided and appropriated for the deferred maintenance issues, that this Governor's budget should be left intact and the deferred maintenance issue should be looked at separately. We have been meeting with the legislative leadership and the individual members of the House and Senate budget teams. After a meeting with the Governor's Office on these issues, Ms. Swanson said, I think the result will be somewhere in the middle. I do not know whether there will be a deferred maintenance outcome in new money for that this year, but I do think that the specter of the issue has been raised to such a level now in Springfield, she said, that I look for an initiative over the summer and the fall with the Board of Higher Education, the universities, the Governor's Office and the legislature coming to the table and trying to put a five- or ten-year plan together to address deferred maintenance needs on the university campuses. There will be a significant commitment in internal reallocation asked by each board of trustees to focus on this effort as well over the next six months.

Agenda Item 6.a.(3) - Fiscal Year 2000 Capital Priority List
The capital budget showed, basically, the Governor's recommended funding levels on the next to last category, and the ones he feels he can actually fund this year were listed in the far right column for a total of $161 million for FY00 higher education capital improvements. However, the Senate made an adjustment to that by taking out funding for the University Center of Lake County. The Senate Republican Caucus, particularly, felt that at this point in time it was not necessary to build a new building or to create a multiuniversity center for Lake County. The $11 million that was allocated for that center in the Governor's budget was a 50% match; the county was going to contribute the other $11 million to construct this facility. There was substantive legislation pending in committee the day before this Committee meeting, which would give Lake County the ability to tax for educational purposes. Right now a county cannot tax for educational purposes and, therefore, technically, cannot spend capital funds on construction of an educational building. So, the substantive legislation is moving forward at this point, but Ms. Swanson thought it would probably be held for a final vote until this issue is resolved.

Northern's projects on the list were number 13, planning money for the expansion of the Hoffman Estates Education Center, which was funded by the Senate, as well as the Governor, and number 23, the Founders Library basement buildout, which was not funded under the Governor's budget and was not funded under the Senate recommendations.

Agenda Item 6.b. – FY97 Compliance Audit Report
On February 1, the university appeared before the Legislative Audit Commission to defend the FY97 Compliance Audit, which contained only three minor findings. Two of the three were eliminated in 1998 and the other one was eliminated in 1999. The university's audit was unanimously approved by the Audit Commission. And, again, Ms. Swanson said, I want to say that the university was complimented, the Board, particularly, for its attention to the detail on the audits that this Committee has exhibited in the past.

Chair Moser then asked for a motion to adjourn. Trustee Siegel so moved, seconded by Chair Moser. The motion was approved. The meeting was adjourned at 11:11 a.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sharon M. Mimms
Recording Secretary