After a year of suffering callbacks and a cut to higher education’s base budget, state legislators are proposing another $200 million in cuts, about 8 percent of higher education’s total budget.

In his budget, Gov. George Ryan proposed a $70 million cut to higher education, which includes among other things state universities and community colleges, the Illinois Student Aid Commission (ISAC) and Illinois Math and Science Academy (IMSA).

If Eastern received the same proportion of the cut as it has in other callbacks, that would mean another $5 million out of it’s fiscal year 2003 budget, said budget office director Kim Furumo. The university’s recommended increase for FY03 is only $3.8 million.

Last fall, Eastern had to return $624,000 in general funds to the state and spend another $1.7 million on group insurance because of a suffering state budget. The $624,000 became a permanent cut to the base operating budget.

“If they truly go through with this, I have no idea how they would allocate that to higher education,” Furumo said. “I can’t imagine they would want to come back and ask us for another $5 million.”

The Illinois Board of Higher Education is “in touch with the governor’s office and with legislative leaders to express the opposition to such a large cut to higher education,” said Don Sevener, the IBHE’s director of communication.

Eastern is continuing its efforts to lobby for state support, and Jill Nilsen, vice president for external relations, said students and their parents sometimes make the greatest impression on their legislators.

“Eastern and all of higher education continues to convey to legislators the importance of legislative investment in the future of the state. We continue to talk about need for dollars we’ve requested,” Nilsen said. “We need the help of students and parents of students to talk to their home legislators.”

The idea comes from the leaders of the appropriations committees of both houses of the General Assembly, Sevener said.

Other lawmakers and budget experts have speculated that the move is intended to show the severity of the state budget crisis and illustrate the need for a tax increase, something not included in the legislators’ budget proposal.

“It’s a way to focus attention on how large the problem is,” Sevener said.

Legislators are particularly hesitant to raise taxes now.

“There is a reluctance to raise taxes in part because it’s an election year,” said Steve Brown, press secretary for House Speaker Michael Madigan, D-Chicago.

The state is currently about $1.5 billion short of its predicted revenue for this fiscal year, and is required by the Illinois Constitution to maintain a balanced budget, Brown said.

“If you’re going to do a budget based on no tax increase with $1.5 billion less, there is no way to avoid cuts to every service that state spends money on,” Brown said.

With regard to a tax increase, Madigan “has an open mind,” Brown said, and no one from either chamber or either party has spoken in favor of the latest cuts. Some have even spoken against it.

“Both the governor and individual legislators indicated this budget proposal is too severe,” Brown said.

The state went after higher education because it has other sources of revenue and doesn’t budget as frugally as other state-funded institutions, Brown said.

“(Higher education) has options available to it that a not-for-profit that does mental health services wouldn’t have.

“If you look at universities, they consistently spend way beyond any kind of cost-of-living increase or inflation index. Universities are the least fiscally controlled group in the state,” Brown said.

Often times, he said, universities ask for money they don’t need.

“They say ‘we need money to save faculty,’ and at the end of the day that’s usually not the case.”

Nilsen said keeping quality faculty and making technology available to students are some of the reasons it is important that higher education get state funding.

When speaking with legislators, “we discuss how that investment in the universities enables the state to look at the future with bright young graduates,” Nilsen said.