Despite fears across the state the proposed budget will have to be

completely reworked now that the proposal to tax incomes over $100,000 has

been scratched, President Wade Gilley is urging UT staff and students to

support the budget devised by the Senate Finance Committee on June 7.

The proposed senate budget, which does not include an income tax, includes

$74 million in capital improvements, a 4 percent increase in average staff

salary, a 6 percent increase in average faculty salary, $10 million for

equipment and $15 million for research matching funds.

“The university is getting a much higher priority this year, ” Gilley said.

“This is an important change.”

The Senate Finance Committee made room on its budget to fully fund

improvements proposed by Governor Don Sundquist for higher education.

Just as Sundquist approves of the committee’s spending priorities,

Knoxville’s senate representative Tim Burchett voted for the proposed

budget.

Among the improvements are the planning for a pharmacy building in

Chattanooga and renovations to the Glocker Business Administration Building

here on campus.

Input from current and former students at the university has had an

important role in making UT a priority.

“The key advocates for higher priority are students and alumni, both have

done an extraordinary job,” Gilley said. “The e-mail that alumni, faculty,

and staff generated has also been impressive.”

Although the senate committee’s proposed budget is not as favorable to UT

as Sundquist’s own budget, Gilley believes it is certainly going in the

right direction.

“There is now a consensus that the university must be better funded,”

Gilley said. “I am still optimistic about a better budget for the

university this year, but not to catch up on funds we really need.”

The University of Tennessee needs to compensate for a 10 percent

underfunding in the past 10 years, Gilley said.

“The establishment of a higher priority is a long-term process and we’ll

have to start at it once again this fall,” Gilley said.

Gilley urges all students to thank their perspective legislators across the

state for their support and to ask them to keep fighting for higher

education.

The senate and house are currently in conference shaping a budget.

Proceedings are now expected to be slow due to a legislative deadlock on

taxes and spending.

The House of Representatives and Senate respectively passed budgets in

committee without the income tax, but jointly were deliberating whether to

vote on it. Hopes that the budget would be passed in a few days have been

dimming, sending worries among those concerned with how higher education in

the state will be affected.

The new fiscal year for the state of Tennessee begins in two weeks.