NIU President John Peters discussed the university’s fiscal situation Wednesday at University Council.

University Council held a meeting Wednesday in the Holmes Student Center Sky Room. Peters’ introductory announcement focused on the state of the university’s budget.

“We have completed appropriations hearings before the House, and we are owed $47.3 million dollars from the State,” Peters said. “I met yesterday with the presidents of all the public universities and there is a consensus that the State will pay the full amount, but it may lapse over into next year to receive the funds.”

Peters also said that NIU has not yet received the money for its spring MAP grants, some $11 million, but expects the university to be getting those funds soon.

“I was told that there was a check in the mail,” Peters said.

The current pension legislation was also discussed in the introductory remarks, with Peters saying that he wants pension stabilization, not pension reform.

“I just get darned mad when I think about the years of hard work that professors and staff have put in at NIU, U of I and other public universities, only to have their expectations of retirement taken away for other state uses,” Peters said. “It gets me very angry.”

A report from the Resources, Space and Budgets Committee discussed the possibility of staffing issues for the fall 2012 semester due to a rise in retirement caused by the pension uncertainty.

“We are seeing two to three times more people inquiring about retirement than normal,” said Laurie Elish-Piper, chair of the committee. “While it’s impossible to the see the future and the exact number of people who will retire, it is a safe guess that eight to 10 percent of employees may retire this year. We will continue to monitor the situation and plan ahead.”

Elish-Piper also talked about current pension reform legislation. She said current legislators may be misunderstanding the situation in public universities.

“They seem to think that public universities are double-dipping into public funds, when the truth is that pension and social security are two very separate pools of money and many university employees are ineligible for social security altogether,” Elish-Piper said.

The council also heard a report from the Student Association regarding the need to revitalize the campus and keep NIU competitive in attracting students.

“The new residence hall is a great step and we look forward to more such projects,” said Austin Quick, Student Association (SA) Senate speaker. “The recreation center is 1/3 the size it needs to be for a campus with this many students however, and keeping NIU competitive will require more such updates and revitalization projects.”

The Council voted 41-20 to pass a bylaw change that would allow the SA to make student representative appointments to the University Council easier and allow the SA to not have to follow certain quota requirements from each college when making such appointments.

The Council adjourned until its May 2 session, which will be its last session of the semester.