ISU President Gregory Geoffroy stressed the impact of budget shortfalls over the last several years as he presented an overview of the prospective budget for the 2003—04 academic year to the Board of Regents Thursday.

Underfunding, reductions and unavoidable costs have totaled $104.6 million starting in the 2000—01 academic year, Geoffroy said. The rising tuition has only provided a $70.2 million increase in revenue over those years leaving a difference of about $34.4 million, he said.

“Going back to 2001, if you look at our state appropriations, it’s been reduced by almost $60 million [since 2000—01],” Geoffroy said.

The remainder of the $104.6 million shortfall consists of $14 million in the underfunding of salary increases and an increase of over $32 million in unavoidable costs, he said. The 2002—03 academic year’s unavoidable costs include student financial aid, campus safety and Memorial Union operations.

“[The state appropriations have] been going down at a time when our enrollment have been increasing,” Geoffroy said. “Compared to 2001, we now have 17 percent less state appropriation per student in [Fiscal Year 2004] than we did back in 2001, even though costs are increasing.”

Geoffroy also discussed the recent increase in the faculty per student ratio, which has risen from 15.9 in 1995 to 19.5 students per faculty in 2002.

“We sincerely hope this is maximized,” he said. “We are doing everything we can to control our faculty numbers so hopefully we can get this turned back around.”

Geoffroy also cited the recent rise in the number of large classes taught at Iowa State.

“Basically this is because we had more students and fewer faculty to teach them and that resulted in larger classes,” he said.

The ISU faculty salary, which has been dropping farther below the average, ranks second to last place among peer institutions, Geoffroy said.

“This is very disturbing because it indicates how difficult it is to compete against these peer institutions for the quality faculty that we really need to have at Iowa State,” Geoffroy said.

Regent John Forsyth commended the university for their efforts in reducing overhead to balance the budget.

Warren Madden, vice president for business and finance, said he is not aware of any changes made to the preliminary budget before it is submitted to the Board for final approval next month.

“We think the preliminary budget is very accurate,” Madden said. “The major [changes] are now happening to the departments and units and when that gets done we will know the final numbers.”

The Board approved a motion to refine the criteria for approving major construction projects.

Forsyth said he would like to see a system of prioritization of planned projects in order to give the Board a sense of what future budgets hold.

“If it’s a major project, we would just like to know about it sooner,” Forsyth said.

Geoffroy explained the difficulty behind this proposed system.

“At any given time, we can have five to 10 projects that we are [working on the plans for], none of which will start construction for a couple years,” Geoffroy said. “It is really the challenge of juggling a large number of projects over a period of time.”

Many of the projects the university creates plans for may never even be built, Geoffroy said.

“We need all of that advance time to do the planning process and do it effectively,” Geoffroy said.

The Board also approved the demolition of the existing LeBaron Hall auditorium, the design for its new auditorium and the demolition of the English Office Building.

Demolition for LeBaron Hall auditorium is planned for the summer of 2004 and the new auditorium is planned to be finished by fall of 2005, said Kevin Brown, communication specialist for the ISU news service.