COORDINATING BOARD APPROVES SPENDING PLAN

Missouri's Coordinating Board for Higher Education wants the state to spend $1.23 billion next fiscal year to finance public colleges and education programs in the state.

That's $131 million more than this year, a 13.2 percent increase, state education officials said Thursday.

The funding request includes more than $150 million for student financial aid.

General revenue would pay for the bulk of the spending.

Dr. Kala Stroup, Missouri's commissioner of higher education, said the state's colleges and universities are benefiting from a healthy economy and good planning.

"We all stick together in higher education," said Stroup, a former president of Southeast Missouri State University.

The coordinating board approved the spending plan for fiscal 2001 at its meeting Thursday in Cape Girardeau.

The funding request will be sent to Gov. Mel Carnahan and the Legislature.

The board met in Southeast's Dempster Hall.

In separate action, the board proposed spending nearly $157 million on capital improvements for the state's four-year institutions. Board members proposed spending another $5.5 million in capital improvements for the state's community colleges.

Southeast's River Campus project ranks fourth on the coordinating board's priority list of projects for four-year institutions. It ranks behind projects at Northwest Missouri State University, Lincoln University and Harris-Stowe State College.

The board recommended $11.95 million in second-year funding for the River Campus. Southeast plans to develop a former Catholic seminary in Cape Girardeau into a school for the visual and performing arts.

Board members followed the recommendation of the Missouri Department of Higher Education staff.

Southeast officials initially had requested $13.2 million to go with this year's $4.6 million in state aid for the project. But the funding request was reduced after the university secured $5 million in state tax credits for corporations and individuals making major donations to the River Campus project.

The tax credits amount to part of the state's financial commitment to the project, said Brian Long, associate commissioner for finance in the Higher Education Department.

Dr. Ken Dobbins, Southeast's president, said school officials are pleased with the state board's funding request for the River Campus.

"That seems to be very fair," he said.

Dobbins said the state board's decision to rate the River Campus project fourth among 15 spending projects boosts the university's chances of securing the funding next year.

If the governor and the Legislature agree to spend $40 million on capital improvements next year, the River Campus project will be in the money, Dobbins said.

The first four projects on the state board's capital improvements priority list for four-year colleges and universities total nearly $40 million.

Dobbins also voiced happiness with the coordinating board's recommendation for operating funds. The funding request includes $53.8 million in general operating money for Southeast, up from $48 million this year.

The spending plan includes $1.52 million in funding for mission-enhancement programs and projects at Southeast.

Statewide, the coordinating board wants to spend $23.7 million on mission enhancements at public, four-year schools.

Dobbins said Southeast wants to use its proposed share of mission-enhancement dollars to open a fifth higher education center. Southeast and its community-college partners already have established higher education centers in Kennett, Sikeston, Malden and Perryville. Southeast wants to open a fifth center in the north part of the university's service region.

Dobbins said no specific site has been chosen.

Some mission-enhancement dollars also would flow to the university's Polytechnic School, funding for faculty at off-campus sites, program offerings at the Sikeston center and the delivery of courses through interactive television.

The coming fiscal year marks the fourth and final year of state funding for Southeast's mission enhancements.

By the end of the next fiscal year, Southeast will have received $6.1 million in state aid for mission enhancements.

Statewide, the coordinating board is requesting more than $843 million in operating funds for Missouri's 10 four-year schools, including the four-campus University of Missouri system.

More than half of that amount, $471 million, is proposed for the University of Missouri campuses.