NIU’s abiltiy to spend revenue from the $150 tuition increase students will pay in the spring, included in Senate Bill 1520, will top the issues affecting the univeristy when the state legislature meets for the next few days.

The Senate and House of Representatives will begin today’s meeting at noon in the state Capitol. The Senate will take action on the House’s $75.4 million ovverride of Gov. James Thompson’s budget cuts, while the House will vote on all of SB 1520. The House’s override includes $62 million for elementary and secondary education, but no money for higher education.

Sen. Patrick Welch, D-Peru, said SB 782, which would create a separate governing board for NIU, also might come up Thursday or Friday. NIU along with Illinois State and Sangamon State universities, is governed by the Board of Regents.

NIU President John La Tourette said Monday plans to close the university for four weeks if the legislature does not approve the reallocation of tuition money was more of a threat than a reality to make the legislature aware of the situation.

e said if it overrides, it would mean the spring semester would start and end four weeks later. The tution increase would bring in about $2.5 million for NIU, he said.

“We can’t operate with a deficit,” LaTourette said. “The only way we can find large amounts of money is to have a shut down. It would be very hard to plan going into January if you had to plan for $2.5 million dollars.”

Welch said he doubts the shutdown would happen and “I think if they did that, there would be an inquiry. Everybody is threatening us with something.” He said SB 1520 probably will be ammended heavily in the House and he is looking at putting the tuition reallocation on a separate bill.

ep John Countryman, R-DeKalb, said Monday some measure would be taken to avoid a shutdown in the spring.

Welch said the House first will vote on SB 1520 as it came out of the Senate. He said he expects he House to add amendments. then the Senate has a chance to look at the ammendments and decide whether to accept those or further ones, he said.

Welch said if the Senate disagrees with some of the ammendments, the House can agree to drop them and the bill would pass. Otherwise, he said, SB 1520 will go to a conference committee.

egents Chairman Roderick Groves said the Regents are following the Illinois Board of Higher Education’s lead by emphasizing the tuition reallocation first. He said the $10.5 million supplementary allocation for faculty raises, also contained in SB 1520, is next.

Groves said if the allocation is only for the remainder of fiscal year 1988, NIU’s faculty would recieve about a 3 percent salary hike. If it is for an entire year, the raise only would be about 1.5 percent.

The IBHE would recieve the $10.5 million and then make the allocations among Illinois colleges and universities, Groves said. The Regency system would recieve about $1.3 million if this part of the bill is passed, of which $636,800 would go to NIU, he said.

Welch said if the Senate agrees to pass the House’s override, the $10.5 million in supplementary funding might not have a chance to pass. He said it is a question about how much money the state has to spend for FY88.

Groves said the higher education only is lobbying for the supplementary funding, not the defeat of the House’s override.

“We all feel very strongly about funding for higher education,” he said. “Obviously it is a ticklish situation. Obviously we’re looking at it day-to-day. It may become important to reassess (not lobbying against House override) later this week.

“I would rather think the legislators are going to do what they have to do without paying too much attention to lobbying efforts,” he added, “At this point we have a hang-up between the House and the Senate. I would think it would be easier to get the tuition money.”

egents lobbyist Phil Adams was unavailable for comment.