Eastern’s Board of Trustees will meet Monday to approve the budget for Fiscal Year 2014 and the budget recommendation for FY 2015.

The budget recommendation for FY 2015 includes a 1.7 percent increase, or about $1.8 million, to $110 million.

Paul McCann, Eastern’s treasurer, said the university got good news last week concerning the budget.

“The legislature didn’t really cut our budget as much as we thought they would,” he said. “If the governor signs it, great, but if he vetoes it, it’ll send us back to the drawing board.”

For FY 2015, one of the biggest changes to the budget includes a nearly 35 percent increase in funds for scholarships and awards.

“The Panther Promise was the program we started last year to help enrollment,” McCann said. “We started giving those scholarships and awards to students who were eligible, and this is just the increase of that as we go forward under the program.”

Others items in the budget, including $102 million for a new science building, $1.5 million for enhancement of the Student Success Center and the creation of a Student Wellness Center for $2.1 million are things McCann said are on the university’s “wish list.”

“A lot of these items are us hoping for the future,” he said. “If money becomes available, this is what we’d spend it on.”

The new science building is at the top of the priorities list.

“(President Bill Perry) and others are lobbying in Springfield and in Washington (D.C.) trying to get that moved up on the funding list, but it hasn’t happened yet,” he said. “Until it’s built, (the new science building) is the No. 1 priority.”

Though some of these projects are far down the road, the $26.4 million for upgrading utilities infrastructure has been an ongoing process, McCann said.

“There is some capital development board money in that process, and we periodically access that money to upgrade utilities,” he said. “Utilities and hooking up wires from building to building are things that have to be fixed, not replaced.”

McCann said some of that work has been done around campus, but often it includes work that goes on behind the scenes.

The board agenda also includes expenditure recommendations for legal services, annual supply of diesel and fuel oil and the creation of a new building for the Center for Clean Energy Research and Education (CENCERE).

“CENCERE is the building that’s going to be built just north of the Renewable Energy Center,” McCann said. “It’ll have elements of an incubator and the ability to run the gassifier and test that in a safer environment.”

McCann said the university received a grant of $300,000 from the Charleston Area Charitable Foundation that will be put toward the project.

“We’re putting about $700,000 into the building itself as well,” he said. “The building will be started by the end of summer, we hope.”

Overall, McCann said this budget has a lot to do with declining enrollment specifically and where the university is at financially.

“We’re still very concerned about enrollment,” he said. “Things are looking better, but we’re still concerned.”

Robyn Dexter can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].