ANNAPOLIS — While most University System of Maryland students enjoyed time away from the classroom in December and January, higher education advocates were anything but relaxed as the future of the system was tried in the state capital with mixed results.
Supporters remain split on the prognosis for the system’s status in the coming years. After the General Assembly couldn’t bring life back to a vetoed bill that would have guaranteed funding increases and single-digit tuition hikes for three years, some proponents doubt how healthy the system’s budget can remain.
But in the shorter term, system officials are declaring victory after securing a bump in funding that Gov. Bob Ehrlich promised in November.
Ehrlich stirred the pot in December when he called the General Assembly into a special session — state law required that it undertake overrides on any outstanding vetoes in the session, which began Dec. 28. And because Ehrlich had vetoed the higher education bill, House Bill 1188, in June, lobbyists and legislators were forced to scramble for the votes necessary to override. Through a loophole, however, legislators were able to postpone the votes of several overrides.
Meanwhile, Ehrlich was preparing his budget for fiscal year 2006, and announced Jan. 6 he would increase funding for higher education by 5.7 percent — giving the system $43 million more than last year.
System Chancellor Brit Kirwan and Board of Regents Chairman Cliff Kendall publicly thanked the governor, and in a move Kirwan said was “an analysis of how things can best work in our state for higher education,” the officials asked legislators to “set aside” pursuit of an override of the tuition capping bill veto.
“It’s not a state where a lot of progress can be made if you become caught between competing currents of the executive and legislative branches,” Kirwan previously told The Diamondback.
Less than a week later, the General Assembly reconvened, and while it reversed Ehrlich’s vetoes on five bills, leaders in the House of Delegates chose not to even put the higher education bill up to a vote as the level of support for it in the legislature seemed insufficient.
When he referred to it as the “corporate tax bill” in a news conference during the session, Ehrlich highlighted the bill’s main point of contention — the funding to increase support and limit tuition hikes would have come from a 10 percent increase in corporate income taxes.
Some legislators, like Sen. Nancy Jacobs (R-Harford), thought it was unfair to make businesses support higher education so much.
“There’s no connection,” Jacobs told The (Baltimore) Sun. “It’s not related in my mind, and it is a tax.”
But the bill’s supporters cited the tax increase as an investment in the future work force and explained that even at the proposed 7.7 percent rate, the state would still rank lower than all nearby states but Virginia.
“Everyone was talking about the corporate tax portion, but they were misinformed,” said Del. Adrienne Jones (D-Baltimore Co.), the bill’s lead sponsor. “[Opponents got] fear from that three letter word in there.”
Legislators are currently working on new, similar bills in hopes “to provide stability and predictability” for students and their parents, Jones said.
