; - v - f r'i 11 M u I : , . U Pl.'-Kr i f ! . uV4 ; ft-; ; ;w I nw iff-. h r-:'..-. '..-w r I 'V-.. -; r'l j UN "'i h - 'V it1 : :;1 ' k I' , v l , Looking at a new year Legislators eye college budgets, new voting age By Suzanne Dean Staff Writer A budget battle over funds for colleges, the controversial higher education governance issue, and the possibility that a constitutional amendment will be proposed to lower Utah's voting age should capture the attention of the University community during the coming session of the Utah State Legislature which convenes Jan. 13. As usual, funding will be the touchiest issue. University officials will be fighting to preserve their original budget which calls for a $26.7 million dollar contribution from the state as the state's share of an $80 million plus budget for 1969-70. Balances Increased Requests The legislature, on the other hand, will be struggling to balance the increased requests not only of the University, but also of the other eight state colleges, the public elementary and secondary schools, the welfare highway and other departments. In recent years, individual schools have presented their budgets to the Utah Coordinating Council. The council has then recommended to the governor a lump sum for the state's entire higher education- -system. This year, higher education asked for $53,636,422. The Coordinating Council recommended the schools get $43,515,459. University officials now must wait for what will likely be a further budget axe when Gov. Calvin L. Rampton delivers his budget message to the legislature Jan. 22. Watch Recommendations What they will be watching for even more closely will be a possible recommendation from the governor that taxes be increased. The state can not meet these requests with existing revenue sources. Although the Utah Coordinating Council of Higher Education has already trimmed more than $6.3 million from the $26.7 million the University is seeking from the state, Neal Maxwell, executive vice president, feels that "within the limits of the funds available, the legislature will do well by higher education." Taxes Big Issue "We've always had reasonably good sympathy from the legislators, and I fully expect higher education to get one of the larger increases. But the tax increase will be the big issue." Unlike in the budgeting problem, there is in the governance question one point of general agreement. Nearly everyone concedes that some powerful state body should be created to govern higher education. But the question is: Should that state body be the only agency to which colleges are responsible? Or, should the individual boards of regents and trustees, which now govern the colleges, continue to function, and if so, what powers should belong to the boards and which to the central state agency. (Continued on Page 15) f --photo by Brian Kecord A young member of a Utah migrant worker family gazes out at 1969 through a hole in the wall of a shack his family calls home. For 1969, University students can look forward to the opening of the sports complex, a shortened spring vacation, more wordless (?) computer registration, the second annual Utah j Basketball Classic and the usual academic battles-studying, term papers, exams and professors. Budgeting, governance, younger vote face legislators (Continued From Page 1) ( Thinking which favored the "strengthened coordinating council" and the continuance of individual governing boards seems to have shifted somewhat in recent weeks toward the all-powerful, single-board proposal. The Coordinating Council's Citizens Advisory Board, headed by Mitchell Melich, and the council's own study committee on governance some time ago recommended the single board. But when the issue came before the Coordinating Council itself, it voted for the "strenthened council" idea. Only recently, however, the council clairified its position. It preferred the strengthened council and retaining individual college boards, the council said, but it preferred a single state board to no action at all. Since then, the Deseret News has endorsed the single board proposal, and Sen. Dixie Levitt (R-Iron, Kane and Washington counties) has pre-filed a bill that would create a single governing board. The University officially favors the single board plan, and, said Mr. Maxwell, "there's quite a bit of momentum behind single board." Perhaps most interesting to students is the lower voting age question. Chances for a lower age received a big boost recently when Sec. of State Clyde Miller's Election Laws Study Committee of Utah Democrats, Republicans and Americans Independents unanimously endorsed the 18-year-old vote. A lower voting age would require a constitutional amendment and would have to be approved by the voters in general elections two years from now. Thus, nearly all students currently attending the University will have turned 21 an way by , 1972, date of the earliest state-wide election in which 18-year-olds could vote. Nevertheless, several student groups are organizing to urge a lower age.