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orary dooks, equipment and supplies which just have to be bought. I think we need a healthy increase in faculty salaries, since essentially we didn’t have any at all in this last year of the 1982-84 biennium. In each year of the next biennium, we need at least a 10 percent increase.”
“And also,” he said, “we need an opportunity to fill some of the positions we’ve had to leave vacant this year and will have to leave vacant next year because of budget cuts caused by revenue shortfalls.
“We don’t know at all at this time, of course, what kind of budget Gov. Robb will present to the 1984 General Assembly. We obviously hope that the governor will give strong attention to higher education in this legislative session. We didn’t come out very well in the 1983 session, and I would think it’s higher education’s turn.”
Dr. Davies’ objectives could set the stage for a major' battle over higher education money wrhen the General Assembly convenes in January. The confrontation would be nothing new. The council has long been at odds with Secretary of Education John Casteen’s support of Gov. Robb’s hold-the-line policy on state spending. As a Robb staffer put it, Davies and Casteen have “different agendas.”
In truth, Gov. Robb has had little choice in the matter in the past. The recession, which created havoc with the state’s budget projections, left his fiscal planners with little room for maneuver. The economy is improving marginally, but without a major upturn and a resulting infusion of badly needed revenue, there appears to be little chance that there will be enough money to go around. There are, after all, similar urgent needs for funds in corrections, Medicaid, mental health and a score of other state services.
Of course, there is a possible solution to the problem, and that is some form of general tax increase. Gov. Robb has consistently avoided ruling out such a possibility, and with the General Assembly elections out of the way by January, even the members of the legislature might then examine the idea without quaking in their shoes.
If a tax hike proposal is in the works, however, you may rest assured any hint of it will be guarded like the atomic bomb secret until after the November elections.
There is no doubt, though, that there will be a major running debate over higher education funding in the months ahead, and later when the lawmakers return to Richmond.
The council and the universities w ill be grimly demanding more money while the governor’s men, just as grimly, try to hold the spending line.
Unless, of course, they are otherwise occupied trying to keep smiles on their faces while they reluctantly bite that bitter tax hike bullet.
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