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The effect on SOU Under the budget approved Thursday by a joint subcommittee, undergraduate tuition for Oregon residents at Southern Oregon University would remain at $1,015 per term. SOU's budget would increase by slightly more than the 4.3 percent in the governor's recommended budget. SOU President Stephen Reno said the higher amount would put the smaller campuses on a more equal footing with Oregon's three large universities. Panel, Kitzhaber $15 million apart on higher-ed aid Legislative subcommittee OKs budget By PETER WONG SALEM -- Both want more money for Oregon's public universities, but a legislative panel's approval Thursday of a bigger budget for higher education could lead to a showdown with Gov. John Kitzhaber. The budget continues a freeze on undergraduate tuition for two more years, lets the seven campuses keep tuition generated by their students, links state aid to their enrollments and restores some of their program cuts in the past decade. Kitzhaber backs all of them. The amount voted by a joint budget subcommittee is about $15 million more than Kitzhaber asked for, but $13 million less than proposed by Senate President Brady Adams, R-Grants Pass. Higher Education Chancellor Joe Cox said after Thursday's vote that the potential conflict is overblown. "Both support this (reorganization) concept," Cox said. "The difference is in over how much you phase it in over one or two budget periods. But I have been around long enough to know there are times I do not voice opinions. I leave the legislative process to those who are responsible for it." Earlier this month, the Democratic governor said he may be forced to veto agency budgets "that significantly exceed the levels I have recommended" until Republican legislative leaders unveil their own plan for a balanced state budget, including aid to Oregon's 198 local school districts. The Legislature's joint budget committee already has cleared a two-year, $426 million budget for state aid to community colleges, which awaits a vote of the full House. It has not yet voted on a bill for state aid to school districts. By a vote of 11-1, the budget subcommittee on education rejected an attempt to keep the higher education budget closer to Kitzhaber's original amount until the Legislature determines state aid to school districts. "All of education is important," said Sen. Cliff Trow, D-Corvallis, and a retired Oregon State University history professor. "We ought not to think of only one aspect of it." But Trow and other Democrats said they may have to support the governor's position if legislative leaders continue to be vague about their balanced-budget plans. The system's total budget for the next two years is proposed at $2.35 billion, which includes tuition, federal and private grants, and charges for services such as dormitory fees. The share from the tax-supported general fund is $630 million, and another $100 million from that fund is in a separate budget for the OSU Extension Service, agricultural experiment stations and forest research laboratory. After the subcommittee's final 9-3 vote, Cox said it amounted to an endorsement of the system, which has tried to become more efficient and measure student performance and faculty productivity as it rebuilt after a decade of declining state support. "I came to Oregon in 1987 because I believed it was the future," said Cox, who was Southern Oregon University's president for seven years until he became chancellor of the state system. "I think that today's action confirms that I made the right choice. For all the students who paid skyrocketing tuition and all the faculty members who did without salary increases, this confirms that the people of Oregon have not forgotten them." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA