Senator Chichester and I are in basic agreement about where we need to go on higher education funding policies. He drew the long straw and got to go first. The members of the Commission and those in the audience drew the short straw because much of what I have to say will repeat and emphasize a lot of what my good friend John just told you. To keep things interesting, however, I will put my own slant on the issues, and I will be brief.

It is of great interest to me that there is general agreement on all of the really important matters. Most, if not all parties seem to agree on the following broad issues:

• The public colleges and universities should have greater freedom to manage their own affairs. The buzzword is "decentralization." Everyone is for the idea and we've been working on it since 1986. Much has been done. There is more to do.

• Our institutions deserve a funding policy that makes sense and reasonably predictable. It should provide stability of revenue, maintenance of quality, and recognition of performance. The current base budgets of the institutions should be examined for adequacy, and adjusted as necessary. Details to be worked out later.

• Affordability, accountability and quality should be the watchwords in higher education. In other words, we need to provide access to a broad range of students; we need to make sure the schools give students something that is marketable and that they support overall Commonwealth goals; and we need to make sure that nothing happens to destroy the diversity that makes our system of higher education the best in the nation.

These are the fundamentals of higher education funding. I don't believe any member of the General Assembly would disavow them, and I doubt that any of you would either. So we really are just talking about how to get from Point A to Point B...how to re-establish funding policy and make sure accountability underlies it.

This brings me to a discussion of different points of view. One viewpoint, expressed in the State Council of Higher Education's "Performance Funding Model" or "Block Grant" proposal, is that each institution should be left free to do its own thing, to spend its revenues only as it sees fit, unburdened by over-arching State policies that the Governor or the General Assembly may wish to spell out in law or in the budget bill.

Now, one of my major concerns with this notion is that it ignores the long standing priorities that the General Assembly and Governor have worked so hard to achieve. For example, we did not dig and scrape over the past 8 years to bring our faculty salaries back to the 60th percentile so we could remain competitive, just to have the ground eroded, if that is what a school wants to do.

We did not pass the Higher Education Equipment Trust Fund and pump hundreds of millions of dollars into state-of-the art equipment because that was a passing fancy.

We have not struggled for the better part of two decades to make maintenance our existing buildings a top state priority, only to let buildings start crumbling around us, if there are internal pressures to put the dollars somewhere else.

I could go on, but I hope I've made my point.

The point is simply that people of Virginia elect members of the General Assembly to do a job - to set priorities and to make overarching policy choices. They did not elect us to give away this responsibility.

Governor Godwin understood this responsibility 33 years ago when he commented on the proposal to establish a State Council of Higher Education. He said:

"I strongly recommend that the Council be adequately staffed, recognizing that it is not, and should not be, a controlling or administering agency, but represents the General Assembly and the Governor, and is an advisor to both.

"In addition, the Council is designed to assist and guide our colleges in their development and, as such, should serve as a useful instrument for each of them in presenting their needs and promoting their fulfillment.

"In this connection," said Governor Godwin, "let it be understood that it is not my thought to restrict the Boards of Visitors or the heads of our institutions of higher learning from presenting their needs to the Governor and the General Assembly."

Governor Godwin understood that in Virginia we do not make radical changes in our ways of doing things unless there is broad consensus that the train is off the track. In this situation, we feel that it is sufficient to take some of the sharp curves out of the track, so the train can run more smoothly. Our funding policies need improvement - not drastic change.

No discussions - no policy - and no initiatives generated by the Governor or the General Assembly. That is not Virginia, nor should it be.

Lump sum funding in my opinion creates a strong tendency for state officials to say, "Here it is - this is all you get because this is what the formula says." In my discussions with others, they feel the result would be that institutions would decelerate, and even stagnate, because there are reduced incentives to innovate change and grow. In the words of a university President, "Lump sum funding often seems to be a way for some institutions to preserve the status quo."

I think John Chichester outlined very clearly how we plan to go about that on the legislative side.

We will evaluate funding adequacy, find a way to reflect change as we go forward, and give schools more freedom - within limits - if they are accountable to our collective needs as a citizenry and as a Commonwealth.

John and I invite you to join us in that effort.

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Posted: July 20, 1999
By The Educational Policy Institute of Virginia Tech
sjanosik@vt.edu