The University of Maine System likely needs more financial support from the state, especially as the seven-campus system has not raised tuition for three years. The problem with requesting additional state funds, however, is that the system has chronically done a poor job of convincing the public — and lawmakers, more importantly — that it is spending public money wisely.
Pending an OK from its board of trustees, the system plans to ask the Legislature for $182.2 million for fiscal year 2016 and $189.1 million for fiscal year 2017, increases of 3.4 and 3.8 percent respectively over the $176.2 million the system received this year.
The board will vote on whether to approve this request at its meeting in Fort Kent on Sept. 22.
With the additional state funds, the system will be able to continue a tuition freeze that’s been in place since the 2012-13 school year for two more years, according to the system’s vice chancellor for administration and finance, Rebecca Wyke.
In 2012, system administrators and the trustees agreed not to raise tuition, which had been steadily increasing each year for decades, if the state would not reduce its appropriation.
For the past two years, the state appropriation to the university system has remained steady at $176.2 million. The appropriation funds about one-third of the cost of running the seven institutions, while tuition revenue covers almost all the rest. Two decades ago, state appropriations covered about 60 percent of the system’s education budget. Today, state funds cover 41 percent.
While the system has not raised tuition, its costs have increased.
So, the university system can make a compelling case for the additional state money, especially given its promise to extend the tuition freeze. But it must work harder to sell that case.
The system has numerous positive stories to tell. Like how its Cooperative Extension is improving food safety through its work with farmers and vendors. Or that the campuses are training nurses and computer scientists, to name just two, to meet business demand. Or that the system is educating 35,000 students across the state.
Chancellor Jim Page acknowledges that the system and campuses have not done a good job of touting the work they do.
“The University of Maine System is Maine citizens’ best public asset,” he said Friday. “It affects and improves peoples’ lives” through its educational and public service work.
But these stories aren’t making it through negative stories and impressions — justified or not — that have grown up around the university system.
What the public sees instead is a system office that costs $20 million per year, more than many of its campuses, and is adding to its payroll (to be fair, the office is increasingly doing work that had been done at individual campuses). They see campus presidents, who make less than their counterparts nationally but earn salaries that seem astronomical to most Maine workers, fleeing for jobs in other states (or joining the system office). They see sports coaches fired for poor performance, then collecting six-figure payouts.
They read about a campus — the University of Southern Maine — that has been running a budget deficit for years but faces protests when it tries to cut programs or jobs to balance its budget.
If the university system wants more money from the Legislature — and from voters through borrowing requests that are on the ballot this November — it must do a much better job than it has of proving to Maine’s taxpayers that it is a wise steward of their money.
This isn’t just the job of system and campus leadership and spokespeople. It’s the responsibility of faculty, researchers and staff as well.