FORT COLLINS, Colo.-
A week after publicly assailing Gov. Bill Ritter over funding concerns, Colorado State University President Larry Penley held a face-to-face meeting with the governor and emerged more upbeat.
“The governor and I fundamentally place the same value on higher education and education in general,” Penley said after the Thursday meeting in Denver.
“I’m very appreciative that the governor was willing to sit down and talk, and I am really happy to have his time today.”
Penley lashed out at Ritter and other state officials last week, saying that CSU is getting less than its fair share of state funding. His criticism followed the defeat in the Legislature of a proposed tuition increase for CSU.
Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, chairman of the Legislature’s Joint Budget Committee, participated in the Ritter-Penley meeting.
Tapia said it was a good discussion but conceded that it’s unlikely the Legislature can do more for CSU this session. He said he hopes lawmakers can tackle the funding problems next year.
In a written release last week, Penley said the University of Colorado, the state’s largest university, is being allowed to increase tuition by between $941 and $1,398 per student. CSU, the second-largest university, got permission to raise tuition by just $412 per student.
Penley complained that CU’s overall spending authority is three times larger than CSU’s but its enrollment is only 1.7 times greater.
A measure supported by Penley but defeated last week in the state Senate would have given CSU an additional $34 million in state funds.
Ritter’s spokesman, Evan Dreyer, has said that Penley was pushing a surprise plan that would have boosted tuition 46 percent for thousands of students. Dreyer said last week that the 2007-’08 budget was submitted two months before Ritter took office in January, and he had little time to adjust it.
“The governor indicated that processes needed to be followed and he indicated that (as a higher education institution) you don’t propose amendments that are an end-around to those (processes),” Tapia said after Thursday’s meeting.
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Information from: Fort Collins Coloradoan,
