CHAPEL HILL – After a pandemic and three years without a new state budget, the UNC System needs to invest in both its physical capital and its human capital, President Peter Hans says.

“The university has thrived because of public support for its work,” Hans says in the accompanying video.

In what Hans refers to as a “streamlined” budget request, the System asked legislators to support several priorities in the state budget for 2021-23:

• Enrollment growth funds: The UNC System is one of very few in the country that saw enrollment increase during the pandemic. Cost: $71 million in 2021-22.

• Continued support for NC Promise: The initiative allows in-state students pay tuition of just $500 a semester at UNC Pembroke, Elizabeth City State and Western Carolina universities. Cost: $15 million in 2021-22.

• Reserves for new buildings: Campuses across the System are seeing new buildings come online that voters approved in a 2016 bond referendum. But those buildings have operating costs. Cost: $29 million in 2021-22.¹

• Raises for faculty and staff: UNC faculty haven’t seen recurring salary increases for three years, Hans says. “And boy, they’ve been hard at work – never more so than over the past year,” he says. Cost: $30 million for each 1% increase in university salaries.

• Almost $1 billion in capital requests: The UNC System owns 84 million square feet of buildings – what UNC Board of Governors member Marty Kotis describes as the equivalent of 84 shopping malls. Almost 30% of its 3,000 buildings are more than 50 years old. Those buildings need upkeep, and the backlog amounts to billions of dollars. Cost: Repairs and Renovations: $491 million. Comprehensive Renovations and Building Modernization: $468 million.²

“This is fixing up the buildings that we already have,” Hans says. “I think that is the fiscally responsible thing to do.”

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¹ https://www.northcarolina.edu/wp-content/uploads/reports-and-documents/finance-documents/unc-system-2021-budget-and-legislative-priorities.pdf.²https://www.northcarolina.edu/apps/bog/doc.php?id=65780&code=bog, pp. 72-82.