UNM will request an increase close to $35 million in appropriations from the Legislature this year, which includes an 8 percent increase in faculty and staff salary compensation.
The Board of Regents unanimously approved the University's operating budget priorities during its monthly meeting Tuesday. The priorities will be reviewed by the Commission on Higher Education Thursday and Friday. The Legislature takes the commission's recommendations into consideration when determining UNM's appropriation.
Julie Weaks, vice president for Business and Finance, presented the priorities to the regents.
"We clearly don't anticipate that they'd all be funded, but they clearly are all high on our list," Weaks said of the priorities.
The University's top priority is continuing year four of a five-year plan to bring faculty and staff salaries in line with the average of their peer institutions. UNM is requesting an 8 percent salary increase for faculty and staff, which comes with a price tag of nearly $19 million.
In an effort to avoid a substantial tuition increase, the University's second priority is adjustments to the main campus workload and distance education formulas.
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The main campus formula is used to determine the amount the Legislature gives the University for salary increases. The formula does not include University support staff, which comprise staff positions including payroll, human resources and UNM's president.
The distance education formula does not include general funding expenses, which means the University does not recover the full cost of educating each student.
Other instructional and general funding requests that fall under the University's second priority include paying for the addition of a master's program to the occupational and physical therapy program, College of Nursing enrollment expansion to help curb the state's nursing shortage and unavoidable cost increases for the Health Sciences Center. The unavoidable costs cover increased insurance and utility costs that Weaks said couldn't be covered by medical school tuition increases the way it has for the main campus because the school has a very limited number of students.
The third round of priorities cover instruction and general enhancements.
"The difference between the adjustments is that those are what is required for us to keep doing business at the level we have been doing, while the enhancements are where we look to improve," Weaks said.
The top item listed under this section is building renewal and replacement. Following that, the University is asking for funding to allow the School of Nursing to conduct a distance education bachelor's program with community colleges, which is aimed at helping solve the state's nursing shortage.
Along those same lines, the University also is requesting support for a program that would allow people who already have bachelor's degrees to return to school and quickly earn teaching certificates.
"This is a mid-career change aimed at increasing the number of teachers in New Mexico because of the state's teaching shortage," Weaks said.
Special projects for expansion and new programs make up the final priority. The University is proposing expansion at Carrie Tingley Hospital, the Cancer Research and Treatment Center and renewing funding for the out of county indigent fund.
UNM's request is a 14.7 percent increase or nearly $35 million more than last year. With the adjustments, the University is expecting a total appropriation of about $270 million.
