Penn State President Graham Spanier will make another appearance before the Pa. Legislature today in his bid to increase state funding for the university's 2006-07 academic year.

Today's state Senate Appropriations Committee hearing will be Spanier's second opportunity this year to formally lobby state lawmakers for an increase in state funding. Spanier appeared before the state House Appropriations Committee Wednesday to answer questions in a hearing that lasted about two hours.

The final state appropriation offered to Penn State will result from negotiations between the state House of Representatives, the state Senate and the governor. On Feb. 8, Gov. Ed Rendell proposed a $322.4 million state appropriation for Penn State next year. Last year's state appropriations totaled $323.6 million, though the university requested $334.8 million.

"It's always important for anyone who is seeking money from the commonwealth to come and justify their request," said Sen. Jake Corman, R-Bellefonte, a member of the state Senate Appropriations Committee that will hear Spanier's testimony today. "We need to make sure investments we made in the past are good investments."

The constitutional deadline for the Legislature to approve appropriations is June 30, Corman said.

The 2006-07 tuition levels for all of Penn State's campuses will be voted on by the Penn State Board of Trustees at its July meeting, Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig said. He added that state appropriations play a primary role in setting tuition rates.

"We have two sources of income: state appropriations and tuition, which covers the educational costs faced by the university," he said. "If one side of that formula drops or doesn't meet our need to maintain quality, the other side invariably needs to rise."

During last week's hearing, Spanier criticized Rendell's proposed budget, saying that the "greatest disappointment" was that it did not include an increase in funding for Penn State's cooperative extension and agricultural research programs.

"Agriculture is still the No. 1 business in Pennsylvania," Penn State spokesman Steve MacCarthy said after last week's hearing. "It is such an important need for the commonwealth."

If the state government does not increase the budget for these programs, the College of Agriculture will be facing a $2.4 million shortfall, Associate Director of Cooperative Extension Dennis Calvin said.

He added that reductions in state appropriations and increasing salaries have lead to 160 faculty, staff and county educator positions in the college to be laid off, collapsed or recycled over the last five years.

"We could lose as many as another 54 positions between research, extension and teaching within the college," Calvin said.

Brandi Hunter-Davenport, Rendell's communications manager, said that the amount of money ultimately appropriated for these programs might be different than the governor's proposal, depending on what happens at the legislative hearings.

"Things could very well change with this," she said. "Obviously, education is a priority for this administration. We'll just have to go through the hearings to see what takes place next."

Spanier will not be lobbying alone in today's hearing. Representatives from Pennsylvania's other state-related universities, Temple University, the University of Pittsburgh and Lincoln University will also be on hand to offer testimony on their school's budgets and answer questions from committee members.

Spanier wrote in an e-mail message that after the hearing, he and his governmental affairs staff plan to follow up with members of the state Legislature and executive branch.

"The Legislature rarely strays too far from the governor's initial recommendation, but I am confident that there is a strong case for some modest additional funding from the legislature," he wrote in the e-mail message.