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Pitt trustees want to protect "quality" of university
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University of Pittsburgh trustees today responded to a second consecutive year of major cuts proposed by Gov. Tom Corbett in the school's state appropriation.
The board passed a resolution authorizing campus leaders "to take such steps as are necessary to protect the overall quality and strength of the university in the face of a proposed escalation in the withdrawal of state support. . ."
The resolution did not specify what those actions might be, and in a news conference afterward, Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg said he could not predict what specific actions might flow from the resolution.
Pitt, in return for funding it receives as a state-related university, charges in-state students a tuition rate thousands of dollars below what non-Pennsylvanians pay.
The goveror is proposing a 30 percent cut in the appropriations of Pitt and two other state related universities, Penn State and Temple. They cuts would be on top of a reduction of nearly 20 percent imposed last year. He is trying to close a budget deficit of a half-billion dollars in the $27.1 billion spending plan he presented earlier this month.
State Education Secretary Ronald Tomalis, who attended the meeting as a non-voting member of Pitt's board, sat silently as trustees chairman Stephen R. Tritch read the resolution, which noted "the apparent lack of support for public higher education within the current administration. . ."
Mr. Tomalis said later that he took "great exception" to that characterization.
"We are in a very difficult budget year," Mr. Tomalis said.
First Published February 24, 2012 3:52 pm
