University President Dan Mote told the University Senate yesterday that with a looming state budget deficit facing Governor-elect Martin O’Malley, he expects that slot machine gambling and tax hikes would be needed to help create new revenue streams.
His comments came as he expressed optimism regarding the transition to an O’Malley administration that has so far been highly supportive of higher education, he said. After conversations with state-elected officials, Mote said, he was fairly confident that state funding was safe from the deep budget cuts during other state financial crises.
“The governor and his team are strongly university-oriented … They are very pro-university and pro-College Park,” Mote told the university’s most powerful policy-making body. “I expect to see slots as a new source [of revenue], and I’d also not be surprised to see taxes increase.”
Of outgoing Gov. Robert Ehrlich, Mote said, “We ended in an excellent situation with the current administration, but the start was not so bright.”
Ehrlich will leave office with a $2 billion budget surplus, and funding to the university system has increased since 2005. But that was after three years of $120 million worth of deep and painful state funding cuts to higher education and what university officials called the 2003 “budget crisis.”
With longer-term state fiscal problems still unsolved, O’Malley is now entering office facing a $413 million deficit in fiscal 2008 and a $1.6 billion deficit in fiscal 2009, according to nonpartisan analysts.
“It’s significantly more than anyone thought; however, the governor-elect is committed to keeping college education more affordable and not less,” said O’Malley spokesman Rick Abbruzzese.
Ehrlich lobbied to create slot machines as a solution for past budget deficits, but opposition led by Maryland House Speaker Michael Busch have quashed all slots attempts in the General Assembly. O’Malley has expressed limited support for slots.
“O’Malley has never supported slots as a revenue source, which means that even if a slots bill would pass, it would be for the sole reason of saving horse industry jobs and not to fund higher education,” Abbruzzese said.
Uncertainty during political transition is familiar territory for the university. After Parris Glendening left the governor’s mansion in 2003, Ehrlich inherited a $1.3 billion deficit and turned to tuition hikes to compensate for cutting $20 million from the university system’s 2004 budget. Tuition cost for this university increased 40 percent between 2002 and 2006.
To ensure that tuition hikes and several department budget cuts would not occur again, a university taskforce formed several recommendations to increase savings, several of which have since been implemented. The changes include creating flexible employment contracts, offering more of the costly summer and winter courses and increasing graduation rates to allow faster student turnover.
Ehrlich passed a tuition freeze in March, which limits any tuition increases until the end of the spring semester.
O’Malley’s administration is now working with Ehrlich’s staff on the 2008 budget. The new budget will be announced on Jan. 19, two days after O’Malley takes office, Abbruzzese said.
“Clearly we need to be in good relationship with the old administration and the new administration at the same time,” Mote said.
Mote also told the senate that several state politicians, such as U.S. Sen. Barbara Mikulski, have expressed to him support for higher education during this past election year.
“She essentially used my own language that the university system is the most important asset to the state of Maryland,” Mote said, referring to a statement Mikulski made to O’Malley. “It’s amazing, we’re all singing a powerful message about the importance of higher education.”
All of the House delegates and state senators who were elected this year will visit the campus today during a “freshman tour” where they will visit several university buildings – decrepit and new – for them to hopefully realize the flagship campus’ importance to the state, Mote said.
The politicians will visit the physics building, Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center and hear a speech from University System Chancellor Brit Kirwan at the Riggs Alumni Center.
Ever since a university maintenance worker died in 2002 from an explosion in the physics building, Mote has pleaded with Annapolis for more funding that would go towards building safety funding. After the blast, officials said the building was plagued with safety code violations.
Mote also announced the formation of a 30-person higher education panel that will create the state’s first system-wide university funding model. The panel, which is led by State Sen. P.J. Hogan, will hold its first meeting next month, Mote said.
Contact reporter Ben Block at blockdbk@gmail.com.
