Republican state legislators are pushing to cut a university travel budget they say is sky-high, but administrators are defending the $4.9 million fund, arguing that leaving College Park is sometimes crucial for faculty, students and administrators.

With the state legislature coping with a $2 billion deficit, GOP leaders zoomed in on the travel budget as a way to cut state spending. They suggested cutting the university system’s $54 million overall travel budget in half, arguing it was an unnecessary luxury.

And they aren’t alone in their belief that too much is spent getting from here to there. Dozens of posts on a university website accepting anonymous suggestions on how the university can save money advise cutting the travel budget.

“When there are people out there having trouble with their bills, it’s hard for people to swallow,” Senate Minority Leader Allan Kittleman (R-Carroll and Howard) said.

The travel budget covers everything from mileage when a university employee makes a short car trip to Washington to a group of administrators flying to a conference halfway across the country.

Earlier this month, the university sent a delegation of 38 employees to a national conference for student affairs administrators in Chicago and paid the way for 17 of them, including plane tickets, hotel expenses, meals and conference registration. Fourteen others received some money — between $100 and $250 — from the university for the trip.

The conference was a chance for students and administrators to exchange ideas and network with student affairs leaders from other universities, said Brooke Supple, chief of staff to the vice president for student affairs.

“We had lots of faculty and students give proposals and they were accepted,” she said.

Supple also said the university’s peer institutions sent similar-size groups. The University of Michigan’s student affairs office said it paid for 15 employees to attend the conference.

Neither of the budget packages passed by the House and Senate committees that fund higher education include the cuts to the travel budget. Instead both committees voted to keep cuts for this year small, while promising to freeze spending until 2012. As a result, the university is expecting the travel budget to be about the same size next year.

Republicans still think cutting money for travel is a good option.

“Because the state is in extraordinarily difficult times,” said House Minority Leader Anthony O’Donnell (R-Calvert and St. Mary’s), “we’re recommending this travel budget reduction be considered in lieu of furloughing employees further or massive tax increases.”

But officials said the travel budget was a red herring all along when it came to cutting costs because some of it isn’t state-supported.

“I think [state legislators now] realize that much of the travel budget was not state-funded,” university lobbyist Ross Stern said. “Once you start to dig down, much of it came from federal research money. When you look at the state-funded budget, it was actually not a large number, and that’s not an unreasonable number.”

But Annapolis isn’t the only place where people think too much is spent on plane rides and gassing up. On the university’s Budget Central website, dozens of students, faculty and staff members since August have suggested ways to trim travel costs. One posting suggests having faculty use lower-cost hotels when attending conferences and another suggests a total freeze on travel, with exceptions requiring the approval of university President Dan Mote.

“So much money is wasted on unnecessary travel expenses!!” one post reads.

Despite opposition to keeping the budget, university officials defend travel based on the number of opportunities it creates.

“It’s pretty important to understand, to know what’s going on other campuses, what are people learning, so we can come back as educated professionals,” Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Warren Kelley said. “I think there’s a real value to attending these associations and it’s a real important function that serves a great value to our professionals and our campus.”

korkut@umdbk.com