SPEARFISH—The South Dakota Board of Regents is expected to approve its Fiscal Year 2000 budget request at its regular business meeting on the campus of Black Hills State University in Spearfish on Saturday, August 8. The Board is also expected to approve a reciprocity agreement with Minnesota regarding tuition and fees.

For FY00 the Board’s funding priorities are campus technology, adjustments to the operations and maintenance base budget, and increases to maintenance and repair budgets of the universities. In reviewing the priorities, Regent David Gienapp, Chair of the Committee on Budget and Finance, said, "Funds for technology serve our students and faculty. We must stay current here. Money for operations and maintenance has been stagnant for years, but from this budget the universities purchase necessary supplies and materials. It supports faculty development, too. And we have an obligation to preserve and repair the buildings on our campuses. This proposed budget requests funds to maintain the investments the people of South Dakota have already made."

BUDGET REQUEST

The Regents are requesting funding for the first year of a proposed three-year technology plan. To prepare the budget request, the Regents conducted a comprehensive review of the current technology capabilities and the additional resources needed to meet the academic needs at the universities and special schools in the near future. Current equipment resources and expenditures were inventoried and compared with the equipment staffing and expenditures needed to meet the demands of distance education and a curriculum enriched by technology.

"From our study, we found that the capacity of the backbone infrastructure must be increased significantly if we are to achieve the technology goals of the campuses," said Regent Pat Lebrun, Chair of the Committee on Academic Affairs. "The students are using their personal laptop computers in class and the library. We need wiring and connections to enable them to use their computers throughout the campuses. We need to enhance classrooms so that instructors can tap into the Internet and use CD-ROM video/audio display packages. We have a goal to provide each faculty member with a computer and achieve a student to computer ratio comparable to national data," Lebrun said. National data indicate that the student to computer ratio is 9.6 to 1.

In addition, the technology plan calls for increased instructional technology support staff as well as technology curriculum support staff and more extensive training for faculty once every three years.

The request for the first year of the plan is $4,556,885. The Board is also requesting $446,815 for an adjustment to the base budget for operations and maintenance. The total requested increase is 4.28%. The proposed budget is developed over a period of several months, beginning in March with preliminary discussions of institutional needs. Following its adoption on Saturday, the Board will submit its request to Governor Janklow and the Bureau of Finance and Management.

MINNESOTA RECIPROCITY AGREEMENT

Minnesota and South Dakota have agreed to allow their own resident students to attend higher education institutions in the other’s state at tuition rates that are not as high as other non-resident students must pay. The amount paid by Minnesota and South Dakota students varies.

The Regents are expected to approve the tuition rates for Minnesota reciprocity students at $105.16 per credit hour for undergraduates and $156.81 pre credit hour for graduate students. Required fees are the same for resident and non-resident students.

Tuition varies among the Minnesota colleges and universities. A South Dakota student attending a Minnesota higher education institution can expect to pay an amount equal to what a Minnesota resident would pay to attend the same institution.

The Board of Regents will next meet at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City on October 8 and 9.