Guest Column

Once again, Northern Illinois University faces a financial crisis that threatens to undermine the quality of education provided for its students and services to the citizens of Illinois. Once again, I call upon the campus community to join with me and let our legislators know about our plight.

The state’s financial condition has placed Illinois education at all levels on the edge of precipice. Without the continuation of the one-half percent temporary surcharge on the income tax, higher education is likely to fall into a chasm of mediocrity.

It takes a long time to build a high quality university like we have at Northern. Unfortunately, that quality can vanish quickly with vanishing resources.

The case for continuing the surcharge can be reduced to two basic points:

1. The impact—if the surcharge is discontinued, Northern will lose $6.4 million that has enabled us to maintain the quality and scope of our programming. Faced with the loss of this money, the university has two choices—severely cut programs, staff and student enrollment or replace the money with an additional tuition increased of 24 percent or $240 per academic year. Both of these options are undesirable and we must fight to avoid them.

2. The state’s ability to pay—Illinois ranks 41st among the 50 states in its per capita support for higher education in tax appropriations. The state’s low level of support for higher education could be accepted if we were a poor state, but the state does have the ability to pay.

Illinois has the second lowest individual income tax of the 43 states that have income tax. Illinois ranks 37th in educational spending as a percent of total state spending. Clearly the ability to pay is there, what we need is the commitment to support education.

The first step in Northern’s financial viability is the maintenance of our current budget. I urge students, staff and faculty, to contact our local legislators and let them know you want them to support the continuation of the surcharge.

The second step is to create a tax structure in Illinois that will provide the support for our state schools, colleges and universities to be leaders in the nation.

Our local state legislators are:

on. Patrick Welch

State Senate

State Capitol

Springfield, IL 62706

on. Brad Burzynski

House of Representatives

State Capitol

Springfield, IL 62706

If your residence is not the DeKalb area and you need assistance identifying your legislators, contact Dr. Beasley or Mrs. Cahill at 753-1122.

Editors’ Note: John La Tourette is the president of NIU and is actively working to keep the income tax surcharge intact.