IU Trustees approve $3 billion budget

The IU Board of Trustees approved a $3 billion budget for the 2011-12 school year after meeting Thursday and Friday at the IU South Bend campus.

The Trustees unanimously voted for the new budget, which includes an additional $15.3 million for student financial aid and provides funding for pay increases.

It also includes $1.8 billion for operating expenses and $1.2 billion for activities like medical services, residence halls and research projects.

Across the IU campuses, faculty and staff will see their salaries rise by an average of 1.5 percent, with individual increases to be determined on a merit-basis.

In Bloomington and at IUPUI, an additional 1 percent has been allocated for “retention” increases for top faculty members. On those campuses, faculty salaries will increase by an average of 2.5 percent. Staff salaries will increase by an average of 1.5 percent.

About 20 percent of faculty members on the two campuses will see raises of 3 percent or higher as part of an effort to retain top faculty members.

“Over the past three years, we have seen a loss of state funding totaling about $90 million,” Vice President Neil Theobald said. “The primary reason we are able to provide salary increases this year is that we have found significant savings in reducing our administrative costs and our campuses are enrolling record numbers of students.”

IU’s employees will be individually notified over the next couple of weeks regarding how much their raises will be.

Theobald also said many IU students will benefit from a $51.8 million increase in financial aid grants across the seven IU campuses. That brings the total amount available for financial aid to $323.4 million — a 19 percent increase from last year.

In May, the Trustees approved a  5.5 percent rise in tuition and fees for resident students at IU Bloomington, as well as a 6.7 percent rise for nonresident students.

This will result in $12.9 million for maintenance and improvement projects on all of IU’s campuses, the Trustees said. IU has a current maintenance backlog of more than $600 million.

The new budget will take effect on July 1.

— Jake New