Board of Regents Chancellor Roderick Groves said the Regents’ $125 surcharge message to state legislators that Illinois needs more funding for higher education must be effective, given the recent response from a state legislator.

State Rep. John Countryman, R-DeKalb, said last week that the message the Regents sent to the state legislature was “dead wrong.” However, Groves said the response Countryman made is testimony to the effectiveness of the surcharge.

“To say it got attention and got a comment is part of the purpose (of the surcharge),” Groves said.

NIU Student Regent Nick Valadez said, “It is obvious John Countryman is not pleased with the message.” Valadez said tuition has been covering up for state legislative incompetence “for years.”

At the Sept. 15 Regents meeting in which the surcharge was passed, Groves expressed reservations about passing the surcharge. However, he said he was concerned about the administrative complications derived from a surcharge, instead of being concerned about sending the wrong message to legislators.

Countryman said the Regents are sending the message that they are unwilling to look into the budget for areas where they can work more cost-effectively. Regents need to know where to cut costs, he said.

But the Regency system is the most cost-effective system in Illinois, Groves said. It is so cost effective, he said, that the system almost has reached a point where the quality of education is being endangered. “We have trimmed the budget and have pulled in our belts in terms of funding,” Groves said.

Evidence of the system’s effectiveness is that NIU and Illinois State University have the lowest instructional cost per student in the state, at about 40 percent, Groves said. He said, “We are educating more students with fewer dollars.”

However, he said the teachers’ class loads are about the highest in the state.

“It’s something I’m not proud of,” Groves said. “We’re educating more (students) with fewer faculty.”

Groves said finding ways to make the budgets more effective is always appropriate—”We’re constantly doing that.” However, Countryman’s comments should be taken positively because Regents always should be looking for ways to increase effectiveness, Groves said.

Even while Regents are budgeting to maximum efficiency, the budget still is not covering all of the needs of the Regency system, Groves said.

One of NIU’s needs is the availability of more class sections, even though funds made available through the surcharge will open 39 more sections of classes in the spring 1989 semester.

He said legislators must have taken note that the surcharge is something different than a tuition increase. Legislators now are not saying, “Here are the Regents again with another tuition increase,” Groves said.