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j( r ) I ' -" ( rfs April 10,
Jt j V;; L J-i. V --iJJ ,, L I University of Nebraska-Lincoln Vol 82, No. 143 jl
MU BUDGET CUT
legeonfe ask LegMatae to irestwe mieededl snappoot
By Lori Merryman
The tentative S6 million cut by the
state Legislature of the NU 1983-84
budget would mean a loss of jobs for 65
UNL employees, 35 UNO employees and
35 Medical Center employees, Regent
Kermit Hansen of Omaha said at the NU
Board of Regents meeting Saturday.
NU President Ronald Roskens also
criticized the cut.
"Should this reduction continue to be
supported by the Legislature, the impact
upon the university would severely damage
its ability to deliver quality education to
some 38,000 young Nebraskans, and others
who trust us with their minds," Roskens
said.
The regents unanimously approved a
resolution "urging the Legislature to focus
attention on the quality of higher
education in Nebraska and restore this
needed financial support to its university."
The Legislature's decision to cut the
budget came Wednesday when it adopted
an amendment sponsored by Sen. John
DeCamp of Neligh. DeCamp told his
colleagues the amendment was a way to
find money in the state budget for
property tax relief.
DeCamp's amendment reduced the NU
budget proposed by the Legislature's
Appropriations Committee from SI 53.6
million to $147.6 million.
Roskens said that if the university must
deal "with a S6 million reduction from an
already austere budget," the 3.5 percent
salary increases in the Appropriations
Committee's guidelines might have to be
bypassed. Also, there would be a reduction
in other personnel and programs, he said.
"We will be forced to reduce purchase
of essential goods and services - which,
by the way, were included in the Approp
riation Committee's recommended budget
for this university," Roskens said.
Other sacrifices would be foregoing
library acquisitions and delaying equip
ment replacement, he said.
Wliat the Legislature is saying with
LB628, Hansen said, "is that if you want
to do anything else, other than general
operating expenses, you'll have to sock it
to the students with a tuition increase."
"1 am astonished that some senators
seem to place such a low priority on
higher education," Roskens said.
Regent Ed Schwartzkopf of Lincoln
said Sen. DeCamp used "very questionable
reasoning." Schwartzkopf said he
wondered if the senators considered the
carefully established guidelines of their
own appropriations committee.
In other action, the board voted
unanimously in favor of a new employee
health insurance plan with Mutual of
Omaha to begin in August.
The plan will cost more for participants,
but encourages using less costly procedures
such as outpatient surgery, said John
Russell, NU director of personnel services.
The new plan will establish a health
care plan that will allow employees to
choose between higher levels of coverage
at higher cost and lower levels of coverage
at lower cost, Russell said. The low-option
coverage will be highly attractive to lower
income employees, who may otherwise
have been "priced out" of family coverage,
and to other employees who prefer a
lower-cost plan, he said.
The high-option plan includes the same
deductible - SI 25 for an individual or
S250 for a family - as the current health
plan with Aetna Life and Casualty. But
the employee will pay a higher percentage
of the total medical bill. Under the high
option plan, the employee will pay 20
percent of his health care bill; currently
employees pay 10 percent.
The low-option plan has a $200
deductible with $400 per family. The
individual pays 30 percent of his health
care bill.
While the board voted unanimously
to approve the new Mutual of Omaha
plan, it was split, 4-3, in deciding whether
to install a two-tiered premium structure
for Lincoln and Omaha.
The regents voted to keep the program
uniform.
A two-tiered structure has been
investigated since January when UNL
faculty members and employees expressed
anger at subsidizing high care costs for
UNO and the NU Medical Center.
So far in the 1982-83 fiscal year,
Lincoln employees have paid $465, 690
more in premiums than received in claims,
while Omaha employees have paid $52,941
more in premiums than received in claims.
Separating the premium structures
would have caused rates for Omaha
employees to increase by 1 1 percent.
"An additional 1 1 percent increase
would have a crushing blow to employees
and some would not be able to have health
insurance," said Marge Krawczyk, a
member of the medical center faculty
senate.
Larry Walklin, president of the UNL
faculty senate, told the board UNL
employees continue to endorse a local
option.
"Continued subsidization every year
provides a loss of understanding between
the campuses," Walklin said.
Hansen said that the university, as an
employer, has "to be aware of
discrepancies."
Schwartzkopf said the discrepancies
have existed too long.
"I'm embarrassed that we as a board
have permitted these discrepancies to go
on as long as they have," he said. There
has been a discrepancy between the
campuses since 1977.
"We need to compensate for what the
Lincoln campus has endured,"
Schwartzkopf said.
Regent Robert Simmons of Scottsbluff
said he did not think the Lincoln campus
was subsidizing Omaha's insurance plan.
"Nobody is subsidizing anybody," he
said. "Those who are lucky pay more than
those who draw."
In order to make costs fairer for both
Lincoln and Omaha employees, the board
voted to end the 10-percent discount that
employees now receive when they are
treated at the medical center. The board
also asked that Russell make every effort
possible to resolve apparent discrepancies.
Board approves O'E-llanloini a I eachers
Coll
ego
deatra
By Lori Merryman
Acting dean of UNL's Teachers College,
James P. O'Hanlon, was approved unani
mously as the new dean of the college by
the NU Board of Regents Saturday.
O'Hanlon, a Blair native, received his
bachelor's and doctorate of education
degrees from UNL and his master's degree
from Ohio State University.
O'Hanlon, who has been acting dean of
Teachers College since July, will receive an
annual salary of $58,600.
"We believe his leadership as an admini
strator and excellence as an educator will
provide strong leadership for UNL's
Teachers College," UNL Chancellor Martin
Massengale said .
O'Hanlon joined the UNL staff in 1966.
He was chairman of physical education in
the Department of Health from 1975 to
1977, director of the School of Health,
Physical Education and Recreation from
1977 to 1982 and coordinator of freshman
affairs from 1973 to 1974.
He is former chairman of the Nebraska
Coordinating Council for Postsccondary
Education, a member of the Governor's
Commission on University Funding, a
member of the Association for Supervision
and Curriculum Development Commission
on Teacher Education and a 1972 recipient
of the UNL Distinguished Teaching Award.
In other action, the board
- Increased tuition for correspondence
courses. Nebraska residents will pay $44
per credit hour, a S2 increase. Non-resident
tuition will increase from $44 per credit
hour to $46.
Approved an Educational Specialist 1
Degree at the UNL Teachers College .The
specialist degree is an avenue of preparing
educational practitioners for admini
strative, guidance, supervisor and other
specialized positions in public and private
schools. It is designed for people needing
preparation beyond the master's degree
level, but not needing to complete a
doctoral program.
Approved increases in rental rates for
Love Memorial Co-op Hall (effective in
the 1983 fall semester) and for University
Park and Colonial Terrace Apartments
(effective July, 1 1983).
Heard Massengale announce that
some UNL football tickets would be made
available to NU Medical Center students.
" u u .
(D) inm me
By Jann Nyffeler
Contrary to rumor, academic - not
administrative - computing at UNL will
benefit from $500,000 earmarked for com
puting by the NU Foundation.
Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
John Strong said in an interview Friday
that academic and administrative
computing "have to be divorced from each
other. By nature, they're incompatible."
Strong, who has been assigned the res
ponsibility of coordinating academic
computing, said there is a good chance the
university will acquire a mini-cQinputer
"appropriate for and to be used in
instruction" in the near future. The
primary function of this computer, as dic
tated by phase one of the plan to update
UNL's computing facilities, will be to serve
computer science undergraduates and other
large departments like the hard sciences
such as physics and chemistry, he said.
In the second phase of the plan,
$200,000 from emergy savings will be used
to benefit small users. These users tend to
have different needs than those of heavy
users like the computer science depart
ment .
Ed Anderson, assistant dean and
director of the Engineering Research
Center, is investigating current computer
usage trends to pinpoint the departments
with the greatest concentration ofstudent
users. Data for accumulating this informa
tion is minimal, based primarily on cumula
tive dollar amounts of billings to each
department by Computing Services.
At a joint meeting of the computational
services and facilities committee and the
executive committee of the faculty senate
Thursday, Jerry Burkey of Computing
Services said the billings are not necessarily
a good estimation of departmental use. He
said billings are made up of various rates
charged for different types and priorities
of computing.
Anderson's findings apparently will be
used to aid in determining wluch depart
ments will benefit most from the founda
tion money.
There is no economic advantage to
combining academic computing with the
Computing Servies, Strong said. The Com
puting Services network, located in
Nebraska Hall, is not a part of UNL, but:
rather of the university's central admini
stration, serving all NU campuses.
Strong claims that the network hasn't
been responsive to academic user priorites.
Persons with academic computing needs
frequently take the back seat to admini
strative computing activity.
"The average user doesn't need that
large a machine," he said. "Let's equip
them at a lower level; give them more input
to what will serve them."
"If we can reduce demands on the
network, then they can reduce their budget
-personnel and machinery." The academic
half of the network's budget can in effect
be transferred to UNL, allowing the uni
versity to "Provide better, more tailored
computing to some units," Strong said.
"There will still be instances of large
users (department ) purchasing service from
the network if they are 'the most
economical supplier," Strong added. "What
can be done on the lower level will be done
there," he said;
Strong said the entire plan should
eliminate some money from UNL's
commitment to the network. Some persons
now employed by the network may
be hired by UNL st staff and maintain the
academic branch, he said. UNL also is
advertising now for a campus computing
director.
During the meeting Thursday, Strong said
that equipment vendors estimate that
hardware ordered immediately won't be
delivered until middle to late summer.