2 system schools may see funding

Two UNC-system schools could receive millions of extra dollars every year to offset historical shortfalls in their budgets, system officials say.

The UNC-system Board of Governors discussed a proposal Thursday to annually furnish about $7 million to UNC-Wilmington and $1 million to Appalachian State University, two schools officials say are significantly underfunded.

BOG member Jim Phillips, chairman of the Budget and Finance Committee, said the enrollment funding model that examines the system schools' budgets is not to blame for the funding shortfall.

"We looked at the enrollment funding model and came away concluding that it was working the way it was supposed to work," he said.

The board's recommendation is an attempt to fix a problem that has existed for years.

Phillips said the N.C. General Assembly's appropriation of $21 million in the late 1990s to five underfunded system schools wasn't enough to fully help schools that started out at a lower margin.

Some say schools like UNC-W have been operating on a subpar budget and will continue to do so unless something is done.

"We didn't have the funding that the other universities did," said UNC-W Provost Paul Hosier. "The funding model tends to cover what our current enrollments are and the increase, but it doesn't cover our original (shortfall) from years ago."

But BOG member Ray Farris said enrollment was not funded 100 percent by the model. He added that UNC-W was the least funded as far as enrollment growth of all system schools.

"They grew at a much faster rate," he said. "They just got into a bigger and bigger hole."

In addition to UNC-W and ASU, UNC-Charlotte also was identified as being significantly underfunded. But that university will receive money because of its change to doctoral status that will more than make up for the shortfall, Phillips said.

The BOG will make its final recommendation to the General Assembly in November. The funding hinges on the approval of state legislators.

"It will be one of many requests that we make," Phillips said. "I think that how much they do and can do will depend on the state of the fiscal situation in the state."

Hosier said the money is crucial to UNC-W's commitment to its students. He said it will help the university reduce class sizes and hire better faculty.

"With that kind of funding, there are a lot of things that we've been doing on a shoestring, or doing on one-time funding, that we can put permanent funding toward," he said.

"We think we could do an even better job of educating students if we had more funds."

Contact the State & National Editor at stntdesk@unc.edu.