University of North Texas administrators are working to present a balanced multimillion-dollar budget to regents at the next quarterly board meeting in May.

The fiscal 2011-12 budget will be developed based on a $787.79 million operating and capital expenditure plan approved last month, said Jean Bush, the acting senior associate vice president of finance.

For the first time in several years, UNT faculty and staff won’t receive pay raises, Bush said.

The UNT Faculty Senate is concerned about a disconnect between UNT’s stated goal of pushing toward the higher quality and achievement of a national research institution and not granting faculty merit increases, said Frank Heidlberger, a professor and member of the Faculty Senate.

The faculty merit raises were cut from UNT’s budget in the absence of a tuition and fee increase larger than the 3.95 percent increase currently planned, Heidlberger said, while the university is still trying to attract grant-generating faculty members with hefty salaries, which could disparage current faculty members.

“It was not largely publicized yet, and the faculty will not be very happy about it,” Heidlberger said. “There are a lot of frustrations that will come up.”

The plan reflects the 3.95 percent tuition and fee increase for students, which would increase tuition for an undergraduate student taking 15 credit hours by $152.34 per semester.

The tuition increase is necessary to provide services to students as public funds dry up and budgeting becomes more of a challenge, Bush said.

The plan also projects a 5 percent cut to the university’s general revenue budget based on a potential mandate from Gov. Rick Perry, who asked the state’s 35 public universities — including UNT and Texas Woman’s University — to present plans to reduce their budgets by that amount.

TWU still has not balanced its budget for the upcoming fiscal year, and the university’s Faculty Senate overwhelmingly voted for a resolution of no confidence in Chancellor and President Ann Stuart last week for various reasons, including the university’s budgetary problems and a lack of attention on campus issues.

TWU faculty and staff members also will not receive a raise for the coming fiscal year.

Bush said a state-mandated 5 percent reduction would be painful, but compared with other states, Texas public universities are better positioned to keep tuition and fee hikes low.

“We haven’t had the same issues as universities in other states, but the reality is it [the global economic downturn] does impact us,” Bush said. “We’re lucky it hasn’t impacted us to a greater degree in Texas.”

The increased tuition will impact students as they begin to enroll for fall 2010 classes at the end of this month.

In the last legislative session, tuition and fee increases were criticized in several bills aimed at capping annual tuition hikes at 3.95 percent to 5 percent, and the intent of those bills was clear, Bush said.

The operating and capital expenditure budget is one of three projects Phil Diebel, interim president of UNT, is focused on during his 90 days on campus, he said in a recent interview.

Diebel, who plans to serve as interim president until June 1, said he wants to assist in the budget process, but he has said he won’t make any radical changes.

The other projects are the university’s strategic plan and the path to UNT becoming a national research institution, he said.

“Those three projects have a momentum of their own,” he said.

CANDACE CARLISLE can be reached at 940-566-6889. Her e-mail address is ccarlisle@dentonrc.com.