NIU President John La Tourette once again voiced his concerns about the budget and the necessity of keeping the surcharge permanent at Wednesday’s University Council meeting.

He said the fund created from the surcharge generated $750 million for the state, with about $112 million going to higher education. NIU’s share of the surcharge was $6.3 million.

La Tourette said if NIU marks out specific areas in its budget that could be cut, as was done last year, financial constraints will have less of an impact.

“We have to be prudent and we’d like to identify funds,” La Tourette said. Because the surcharge is a significant part of the budget, “any loss of this funding would be catastrophic,” he said.

“We’re dealing with the minimum wage increase and student employment, so we have to be prudent,” La Tourette said.

La Tourette’s second concern with the surcharge is that it might be reallocated, so he wants to make sure NIU gets its share of these funds.

“We want to maintain our share of the funds and make sure we keep the general revenue funds coming,” he said.

“The Governor has recommended cuts, so the legislature is going to have to deal with high unemployment. We can’t assume everything will turn out all right, so we’ll have to prepare for some kind of a budget decrease,” La Tourette said.