Official tell Trustees U. will break even; financial aid costs, salaries on the rise

Administrators are projecting a break-even performance for the University during fiscal year 1995, Comptroller Alfred Beers told the Trustees' Budget and Finance Committee Friday morning. But the University of Pennsylvania Health System's new Clinical Care Associates practice posted a $3.9 million deficit for the quarter ending December 31, 1994, almost $2.5 million worse than budget. UPHS Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer John Wynne attributed the difference to the difficulties of building the new corporation, saying that CCA's budget was prepared "before we had experience with actual operations." University President Judith Rodin and Acting Budget Director Ben Hoyle then presented the proposed 1995-96 University budget. The plan holds constant Residential Living rents and dining contract prices -- averaging $4,342 and $2,624, respectively -- but increases tuition and fees for undergraduates by 5.5 percent, to $19,898. Overall, charges for undergraduates will rise by four percent next year, totalling $26,864. Hoyle said this change compares favorably with other schools of the University's caliber. This is "a significant accomplishment for us in this budget year," he said. Tuition and fees for graduate students will be $20,846, while professional school tuition will be determined on a school-by-school basis. But members of the Committee pressed Rodin and Hoyle about the spiraling costs of financial aid -- approximately $47 million next year due to the University's need-blind admissions policy -- and about what seemed to be substantial salary increases University-wide. Rodin and Hoyle answered that the burden of financial aid will be shifted more to the schools over the next three years and that salaries have been increased to keep them competitive with other schools and allow the University to retain hotly-pursued faculty. Associate Treasurer Diane-Louise Wormley provided the Budget and Finance Committee with an update on the University's Guaranteed Mortgage Program, developed in 1965. The program is an effort to encourage faculty and staff members to live in the West Philadelphia area, providing financing for up to 105 percent of the purchase price of a home in the community with an appraised value of $203,150 or less. The program's boundaries have recently been expanded to include Cobbs Creek Parkway on the west and City Line Avenue on the northwest, decreasing the average cost per eligible home. "[We want] a wider range of people at a wider range of salary levels to have home ownership," Wormley said, adding that the program and its associated services -- such as free mortgage counseling and an annual housing fair -- have been well-received. At the Stated Meeting of the Trustees' Executive Committee Friday afternoon, Rodin and Provost Stanley Chodorow updated members of the Board of Trustees on the implementation of campus safety initiatives, status of state funding for next year and upcoming faculty leaves and promotions -- including Chodorow's own appointment as a professor of history. Additionally, the Committee passed resolutions enlarging the Health System Trustee Board and various University Boards of Overseers, ratifying the appointments of John Anderson Fry as executive vice president and Susan Fuhrman as dean of the Graduate School of Education and disposing of properties owned by the University in New Jersey and northern Virginia. It also approved funds for the renovation of Blockley Hall by the Medical School and the continuation of the ResNet wiring program.

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