Awaiting the Legislature’s decision about higher education funding, the Board of Regents will hold its fourth meeting of the year during Finals Week. Tuition is not on the agenda.

The board is scheduled to receive an update during its May 4 and 5 meetings on the status of a $40 million additional-funding request. The request, made to the Legislature by the board and Gov. Tom Vilsack, is in danger of not being met.

“If the Senate doesn’t act before the meeting, there won’t be much to talk about,” said Gary Steinke, deputy executive and chief public affairs officer for the Board of Regents.

The board is scheduled to meet at the Iowa Braille and Sight Saving School in Vinton on May 4. The following day, regents will reconvene at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids.

Less than half of the board’s request was fulfilled by the Iowa House before it adjourned Friday. The House allocated $15 million in extra funding for Iowa’s public universities. Senate Democrats are expected to offer a different proposal to fully fund the request.

“I expect the governor and Senate Democrats to hold absolutely firm,” Steinke said. “I just don’t see them backing down.”

An additional $2.4 million for the regents was passed by the House on Friday, but legislators earmarked $1 million of that for a new laboratory at Iowa State.

“That’s not a part of the transformational plan, nor is it anything the university wants the Legislature to do,” Steinke said.

If the plan is not fully funded by the state, supplemental tuition increases beyond the already approved 4 percent increase are imminent, he said. Steinke also said plans for a tuition increase are already being discussed. He said those discussions could take place in June or July rather than at the upcoming meeting.

“The ultimate impact will be on tuition if they don’t fully fund us,” said Davenport Regent Amir Arbisser. He said tuition increases will vary by university, depending on each institution’s needs. Tuition increases are submitted by university presidents to the board for approval.

Although there may not be much to discuss about the Legislature, a main focus of the meeting will be approving dorm room rates and student fee changes.

Iowa State is seeking approval for a number of new fees unrelated to tuition, including a foreign language fee, placement services fee, graduate student enrollment fee and a fee charged to students for failing to attend a scheduled counseling appointment.

The university is also requesting changes to some existing fees, most of which involve eliminating fees for Masters in Business Administration course delivery and College of Education placement services.

Room rate fees would be increased by 2.9 percent, less than proposed increases of 4.9 percent at the University of Northern Iowa and 3.2 percent at the University of Iowa.

Despite the smaller proportional increase, Iowa State would still have the highest room rate.

The upcoming regents meeting will be the third to occur during a university break or Finals Week during the past six months.

“We have a number of constituencies that we try to be responsive to,” Arbisser said.

“We are always interested in having student input.”

He said students have ample opportunities to have their voices heard.

“There is always an opportunity for students to communicate their opinions, whether they are sitting there in the meeting or by proxy through someone else,” he said.

He said Jenny Rokes, a student regent from Northern Iowa, is a very vocal advocate for students and is very accessible by phone or e-mail.

Arbisser added that university students are but one of the groups of people he must be responsive to.