The University of Minnesota gave such poor answers to state lawmakers reviewing a budget request this spring that the school was forced to hike tuition.
As a result, its regents have snapped out of their perceived indifference and are now actually grilling the administration on its spending priorities, driven by new blood, Minnesota Daily reports:
“This is long overdue. [The regents] are finally doing what the regents were created to do,” said Rep. Gene Pelowski Jr., DFL-Winona, adding that the board has been too trusting of the school’s administration in the past.
Regents “questioned the proposed budget more intensely than in past years” in last month’s budget negotiations:
This election cycle, stances on issues like allegedly excessive administrative expenses, the rising cost of higher education and human research ethics were factors when selecting regents, said Sen. Eric Pratt, R-Prior Lake, a member of the Senate’s higher education committee and the Regent Candidate Advisory Council.
After lawmakers selected regents in March, they turned their attention to the University’s budget request, in which the school had asked for $65 million from the state to freeze tuition for in-state students.
Because administrators couldn’t explain well how the school spends its money, the university was given $100 million less than the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities System, the Daily said.
Darrin Rosha, one of three new regents who also previously served on the board as a student in the 1990s, blames the administration for keeping the board in the dark:
“We started from a point of substantially more [information from administrators],” Rosha said [referring to his earlier stint], adding that instead of detailed information and answers to questions, regents today receive vague responses.
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