FAIRBANKS - The University of Alaska Board of Regents will meet next week in Anchorage to consider operating and capital budgets for fiscal year 2011.

Regents are scheduled to vote Monday on a tentative $820 million system-wide operating budget. It includes a request of about $351 million from the state’s general fund, an increase of 6.9 percent from this year’s state contribution.

Regents had planned to vote on the budget plan during their Oct. 30 meeting in Fairbanks, but decided to postpone action until UA President Mark Hamilton had an opportunity to discuss the budget with Gov. Sean Parnell.

Regents were hopeful they could align their priorities with Parnell’s, which would allow them to avoid cuts to their spending plan that occurred under Gov. Sarah Palin’s administration.

The governor’s spokeswoman, Sharon Leighow, said Parnell and Hamilton were able to meet to discuss the budget this month. Specific details of the meeting were unavailable.

In an e-mail, Leighow said the UA budget won’t be handled any differently than an agency’s budget. Once submitted, it will go through the review process before a request is forwarded to the Legislature. A final budget request is due to Parnell from the regents in December.

The budget proposal appears to be unchanged from the document that regents reviewed at their October meeting. The only change that was discussed at that meeting was a unanimous vote to add $226,000 to the budget to give student employees a 50-cent hourly raise.

The capital budget, which is also scheduled for a vote Monday, looks like it will be a smaller request than in recent years.

The proposed capital budget requests $199.4 million from the state. That figure includes $50 million for maintaining existing facilities, $50 million for reducing a maintenance backlog, and nearly $88 million for a new Life Sciences building at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

The list is considerably shorter than last year’s $541.8 million capital request, which the Legislature ignored almost entirely. Just $3.2 million was eventually appropriated for UA capital projects.

For a full agenda of the upcoming meeting, go to the UA Regents’ Web site at www.alaska.edu/bor/agendas. Local residents can view the meeting via videoconference at Room 204 of the Butrovich Building at UA Fairbanks, although public testimony may only be offered by those attending the meeting in person.

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