Trustees pass $2.24 billion IU budget

The IU board of trustees passed a $2.24 billion operating budget for IU Friday with about $941 million going to the Bloomington campus. \nThis is an increase of about $33 million to Bloomington from last year's budget and comes at a time when the campus received just more than $3 million less in state operating \nappropriation. \nThe board passed the budget with a unanimous vote, said Trustee Pat Shoulders. \n"We get prepared for what the budget is going to look like when we are asked to approve a tuition increase," he said. "When we voted on this year's 3.9 percent increase we were told what the parameters (of the budget) were going to be, so there were no surprises there."\nOther items in the budget included $22 million for the Commitment to Excellence fund. IU-Bloomington Chancellor Ken Gros Louis is in charge of reporting all the expenditures from this fund to the board.\n"Schools make proposals which in turn are reviewed by committee, (then) making recommendations to me and the president," he said. "(The Commitment to Excellence initiative) gets money from a separate fund, not tuition or state appropriation or private \ndonor."\nGros Louis said an example of this money being used is the Biology Department getting funds for new faculty or new laboratory equipment. \n"The money is to go to enhance undergraduate education," he said.\nWithin the budget was approval of a pay increase for different IU employees. According to a presentation given to the trustees, academic personnel overall will receive a 3.6 percent increase, with an increase of 2.4 percent overall for professional personnel and a 2.5 percent increase overall for biweekly, or hourly, staff. \nAlso in the presentation were recommendations for increases in salary for certain "outstanding faculty" from IU-Bloomington. Among the 13 people whose salary was recommended for a boost, seven of them received the increase for declining offers from other universities as well as other merits. \nOther issues on the agenda included approval of the Revised Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities and Conduct, which passed with a unanimous vote. Also, the approval of the land easement for the extension of the 45/46 bypass was approved on an 8-1 vote with Trustee Jamie Belanger voting against it. \nBelanger could not be reached for comment by press time, but Trustee Pat Shoulders said Belanger voted against the measure because he felt the expansion of the bypass would come too close to several greek houses already along the road.\nThe board of trustees also passed a new master degree in Biotechnology for IUB.