Legislative funding something to be wary of

Colleges may be relying too heavily on state and federal funding sources to expand services, says one higher education expert.

While the money can be beneficial, the major risk associated with legislative funding is that it can easily and quickly deteriorate.

According to figures compiled by James Palmer and Sandra Gililan for The Chronicle of Higher Education, state appropriations to universities increased slightly last year to $63.6 billion. This 1.2 percent increase was less than the cost of inflation, however, meaning the actual appropriations has decreased in real dollars.

In Massachusetts, overall budget cuts forced a 2.8 percent cut in overall appropriations. Grants to private universities from the Massachusetts legislature decreased 38 percent in the academic year 2002-03 to just under $12 million.

Chronicle politics and education columnist Stanley Fish said that schools need to be firm in their dealings with legislators in order to maintain a constant source of funds.

"It takes a long time to build [a community] but it only takes a short time to fall," he said.

Fish is also the Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The need to cultivate relationships with government has become more acute recently as a number of states have faced severe budget shortfalls over the past three years. As a result, education budgets have been trimmed around the country.

Fish said that limited funds can lead to a transformation of public universities.

"As the percentage of state money supply drops, and demand is increased [universities] must find other sources of revenue such as private donors."

This, he said, "betrays the ideal" of public universities, which were designed to be state-supported spheres of education.

Although the public money compromises only a fraction of Tufts budget, the school is not immune from legislative interests.

Tufts was one of the earlier universities that employed a lobbying firm, done during the 1980s under the leadership of former President Jean Mayer. Currently, the school employs the Dutko Group in Washington, D.C. to lobby for federal monies.

Dutko Group officials referred questions about this article to Tufts Vice President of University Relations Mary Jeka.

Jeka said the school had a successful relationship with legislators, one that could be measured in results.

"We have been able to secure critical funding for numerous important projects across the University," she said, "such as the Veterinary School and the Jean Mayer Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging."

Around eight percent of the Veterinary School's revenue is directly provided from Massachusetts.

The school has received the money for the past 25 years in exchange for providing care to the state police canine units. The Vet School looked to be in serious trouble when Governor Mitt Romney proposed cutting the $3.6 million in state grants to the vet school last year.

Under pressure, the state senate eventually restored $3 million in funding, and the governor's current budget proposes keeping this constant for the next year.

The school is still waiting on legislative approval before the budget will be finalized.

Cuts like these one's can be devastating. "There is not only a loss of faculty," Fish said, "but the cost of delivering instruction rises. Essentially schools will be making do with less."

Vet School Public Relations Officer Barbara Donato declined to comment on the school's current relationship with legislators. She only said, "This type of funding is not the type of thing that is spoken about [until numbers are concrete]."

Romney has been accused of taking too much of a businesslike approach to state government, particularly in relation to the reorganization of the University of Massachusetts (UMass) system. Last year Romney cut $150 million from the UMass system amidst the budget cuts.

Fish said this attitude can be dangerous when applied to higher education.

"Non-university [officials] haven't the slightest idea [about how things run], nevertheless they dream up schemes based on corporate business," he said.

Fish had several suggestions for creating and maintaining a strong relationship with public legislating bodies. He said that first and foremost, administrators should be direct.

"They come to the legislature with hat in hand, but they leave with an empty hat," he said, "If they laid it straight and didn't use weasley vocabulary they would get the money. [No one] likes to work with someone in a position of defensiveness."

Fish argued that administrators should also be direct in asking for funds. "Chancellors and Deans don't get anywhere by being apologetic," he said.

Though often funding is spoken of in hushed voices, Fish states that schools must be firm with legislators in their dealings.

Fish's viewpoint is not shared by all.

American Association of University Professors Director of Public Policy and Communication Ruth Flower said the best way to work with legislators is to acquaint them with the campus.

"Legislators respond to people they know, if their friends are different from universities friends, the university needs to change that, they must acquaint them with the campus," she said. "There needs to have sense among legislators that it's our university, [which necessitates an] ongoing lobbying job of university."

In one administrator's eyes, however, Tufts is already doing an adequate job working with government.

"Tufts has a very good working relationship with our federal and state legislators," Jeka said.