Although legislators are still hammering out the final details of the 2008-2009 state budget, Penn State is set for an increase in state funding -- although that amount has also not been finalized.
Currently, the increase in funding Penn State will receive has been fluctuating between .08 and 1.5 percent, said Tor Michaels, chief of staff for Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Centre. As of press time yesterday, the overall offer on the table was a $2.6 million increase, said Michaels, adding Conklin is hoping that number will increase.
According to the range Michaels provided, the minimum Penn State would receive is about a $2.6 million increase. The maximum is about a $5 million increase.
"We are continuing to fight for funding for Penn State," Michaels said. "We are continuing to try to increase that number."
Penn State has not yet been informed how much the university will receive from the commonwealth for the fiscal year that has just begun, Vice President for University Relations Bill Mahon wrote in an e-mail.
"The university continues to feel the impact of the five cuts in our state appropriation that occurred earlier this decade, and we remain hopeful the commonwealth will support Penn State at a level that will curb the financial impact on students and their families," Mahon wrote.
The budget should be finalized within the next day or two, said Chuck Ardo, Gov. Ed Rendell's press secretary.
"The specifics are still being worked out," Ardo said. "We won't have an accurate answer for the increase until everything is worked out."
Penn State received $327.715 million in state appropriations in the 2006-2007 fiscal year and $334.23 million for 2007-2008, according to the University Budget Office's Web site, budget.psu.edu. Those amounts do not include funding for The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
Last September, the Penn State Board of Trustees unanimously approved a 6.9 percent requested increase in appropriations from the state legislature for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, according to Collegian archives.
The 6.9 percent increase would yield a total of about $24.2 million additional state funds for the university for the 2008-2009 fiscal year, according to the budget office's Web site.
Rendell proposed a .78 percent increase in state appropriations to Penn State in early February, $21.6 million less than the increase recommended by the trustees, according to Collegian archives.
Penn State President Graham Spanier traveled to Harrisburg in late February to lobby the House and Senate Appropriations Committees for more funding than what Rendell recommended.
"We're not asking for the moon here. We're just asking for continued appropriate investment in these areas," Spanier said to the House Appropriations Committee. "Cutting the budget or giving us an increase that doesn't come close to covering inflation simply erodes what we're doing."
