Brand presents budget

INDIANAPOLIS -- A room in the historic Indiana Statehouse was filled with talk of the future Wednesday as President Myles Brand molded IU's budget request around the changing face of higher education and the economy in the 21st century.\nThrough a colorful video and slide show, Brand presented IU's budget requests for 2001-2003 to the State Budget Committee. The committee is comprised of Indiana state senators and representatives, fiscal analysts and budget directors. Sen. Vi Simpson, a Democrat who represents part of Bloomington, is on the committee.\nAll Indiana public universities start their state funding process, which is biennial, at the committee.\nBrand began his presentation by addressing recent media attention to IU's national rankings in various polls. \n"Some of the reports have just been misleading," Brand said. "The fact of the matter is at Indiana University we have 100 programs in the top 20." Since IU and Purdue University are at the bottom of the Big Ten Conference in terms of state funding, Brand said IU has achieved this excellence "on a modest budget."\nTherefore, Brand went on to stress the importance of government fiscal backing for research institutions.\n"Federal and state support helps to create knowledge, and knowledge and research creates products," Brand said. For the University to continue to grow, Brand said it is necessary to form a "partnership between state government, businesses and research universities."\nIn the operating appropriations request, Brand emphasized the new School of Informatics, requesting $13 million for fiscal year 2000-01 and $4.5 million for fiscal year 2001-02.\nBarbara Hayes, who works at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis and is pursuing a second masters at IUPUI, spoke for the University, and attested to the importance of the new school.\n"This will help us provide really creative ways to treat patients," Hayes said. She named examples of advances in medicine that the new school could bring about, including new technology in which "A doctor can practice surgery on a computer five times instead of on you."\nOn the capital appropriation side of the budget, IU asked for $30 million to fund the first half of construction on the new multi-disciplinary science building.\nA site for the building, to cost approximately $60 million total, has not yet been chosen. The University plans to ask for the other half of the $60 million in the next budget cycle, Brand said.\nThe Indiana Commission for Higher Education is currently reviewing the building request as well.\nMichael Baumgartner, associate commissioner for facility and financial affairs, said state money can be given either in the form of cash appropriations or bonding authority. \n"When the Commission gets it, it receives all capital requests from all public institutions," Baumgartner said. "We look at all sorts of different aspects" of the proposed project, including scope of request and whether a request has been made in the past, he said.\nAfter the hearing Wednesday, the committee makes recommendations to the State Budget Agency and the General Assembly. Next February, all public universities will present their proposals to the General Assembly.\nOverall, Indiana universities have asked for about $480 million in capital requests. During the last budgetary period, the Assembly approved about $264 million in requests. That was the most money the state had ever satisfied.