Updated at 2:25 p.m. CDT May 6, 2005

JOHNSTON — Gov. Tom Vilsack said Friday he’s not happy about the prospects of a midyear tuition increase at the state’s public universities, saying he will seek ways to get additional funding to the Board of Regents to avoid that step.

“I’m not particularly keen on raising tuition, particularly in the middle of the year,” Vilsack said. “I’m not suggesting that tuition increases per se are bad, I’m suggesting that perhaps in the middle of the year it may be difficult for young people to make adjustments in their student loans, in their work study programs, that type of thing.”

Vilsack spoke during a taping of Iowa Public Television’s “Iowa press” program to air later in the weekend.

As he spoke, the Iowa Senate was considering a $625 million spending package that gives the Board of Regents a $22 million increase. Senators rejected Democratic-led efforts to provide the full $40 million.

After rejecting that effort, the Senate approved the overall package on a 48-0 vote, returning it to the House where budget talks will continue next week.

Regents President Michael Gartner warned earlier in the week the increase is barely half the $40 million the Regents had sought. He said the Regents would push for a 3 percent tuition hike for the second semester of the next academic year.

In considering the higher education spending plan, the Senate on Friday rejected Democratic-led efforts to provide the full $40 million.

Senate Republican President Jeff Lamberti, of Ankeny, said the $22 million boost was the biggest in years, and that no tuition increase is needed.

“This is a huge increase in funding,” he said.

Vilsack, who this spring appointed a majority of the nine-member Board of Regents, said he wouldn’t block them from raising tuition, but said there are ways to get additional funding to the schools.

“What I want to do is work with the Regents, if the Senate-passed budget becomes the budget of the Legislature, to see if there are ways we can provide additional assistance,” the governor said. “Clearly this is a step in the right direction.”

The Legislature is also considering a 10-year renewal of the Iowa Values Fund, spending $70 million a year on that economic development program and Vilsack some of that money could be diverted to the Regents.

“There is going to be additional assistance for the Regents,” Vilsack said. “I just want to make sure that what we do is fair for the young people of this state.”

The Senate spent much of the day Friday putting in place the final pieces of a $5.1 billion budget that increases state spending by $365 million, or 7.5 percent.

While the plan falls short of what Vilsack wanted, he said he’d support it.

He said Republicans and Democrats in the evenly split Senate have signed off on the budget compromise, as well as Democrats in the House.

“Certainly we can work with it,” Vilsack said. “When you’ve got the Senate, half the House and the governor basically on the same page, it’s pretty difficult to resist that.”

The House and Senate will convene again Monday to negotiate a final version of the budget.

Republicans, who hold a slim 51-49 margin in the House, said they will resist the budget emerging from the Senate because spending levels are too high. In addition, the Senate-passed measure includes a 36-cent per pack cigarette tax increase, and House Republicans say they won’t approve any increase in taxes.