SPRINGFIELD— strategic plan for Regency-governed universities might help secure more funds for public colleges and universities for Fiscal Year 1991.

Regents Chancellor Roderick Groves said the two-year temporary state tax increase, which provided increased funds for education, needs to be extended.

This “planning exercise would be a well-received commitment of accountability to the legislature and the people of the state,” Groves said.

A Regents report on strategic planning stated the Illinois General Assembly needs to be convinced if the temporary tax increase for education should become permanent, it would be beneficial to the state.

The strategic plan will help “make the case that the tax increase be extended past 1991,” Groves said.

He said a strategic plan extending to all Illinois universities will be “effective in providing the kind of direction the universities should have.”

The Regents govern NIU, Illinois State University at Normal and Sangamon State University at Springfield.

NIU is required to submit a strategic plan in March to the board. NIU Provost Kendall Baker said the university is constantly conducting strategic plans and NIU only needs to update the strategic plan created in 1985.

Baker said a vision committee with members representing NIU’s colleges, local experts, students and administration will be formulated within a month.

A larger proportion of minority students at NIU is one of the changes the strategic plan will address, Baker said.

The strategic plan will “respond to the needs of the students, the enviornment and the changing society.” He also said NIU will address the students’ and community’s needs in the 21st century.

NIU President John La Tourette said the College of Engineering is a direct result of an environmental study done between 1982 and 1983.