BUDGET REVIEW IS GOOD MOVE FOR TOUGH TIMES

Today, Southeast Missouri State University begins a series of intensive budget hearings. The object is to find ways to enhance revenues and reduce costs. An in-depth budget review won't be pleasant or painless. But it is imperative that the university find additional ways to reduce its operational costs.

The fact is continued room and board, and tuition hikes may be pricing some students out of a college education. Another tuition increase request looms before the Board of Regents March 5.

At its January meeting, the board increased room and board fees by 8 percent for the 1993 fiscal year. The increase now puts room and board charges in the range of $3,000 a year.

The new room and board fees will generate $6.5 million in fiscal 1993, based on the current 77 percent occupancy rate. Freshmen and soph~omores are still required to reside on campus unless they live at home. But the higher costs may make off-campus housing more attractive to juniors and seniors. As such, the on-campus occupancy rate could decline.

Over the next three weeks, university officials will spend more than 20 hours on intensive budget analysis. It should be an instructive process that will hopefully yield some good ideas.

We realize university officials are not eager to add more to the students' financial burden. They find themselves in a Catch-22: Each year the university is challenged to do more with less. Southeast could receive $30.5 million for general operations in Fiscal 1993. While that would be an improvement, it would still be about a quarter-million dollars less than the allocation in fiscal year 1991. At the same time, the university is under pressure to continue improving its academic program and caliber of student.

There is talk of beginning these budget hearings in the fall next year, to allow more time for analysis and review. That's a good idea. Without real relief at the state level in sight, it's doubtful that Southeast's funding headaches will end in the near future.

The university, and state for that matter, should work toward zero-based budgeting. In other words, the budget process doesn't automatically add a certain percent of yearly increase to every program and position. Instead, the examination justifies these programs and positions that are needed in the first place.

A year-long budget review process should enable the university to do more of this type analysis. This increased measure of accountability may help guarantee that tax dollars and student fees are being used to their best potential.

Hopefully, these intensive budget hearings will reveal ways the university can cut costs and increase revenues. Even if tuition increases can't be avoided, perhaps these measures can at least slow the percentage of growth in student fees.