The University’s first billion- dollar budget passed through its final hurdle last week after being adopted by University President Michael Adams on Friday.

The record $1.1 billion budget for 1998-99 went through the final stages of review by Adams and his Cabinet last week, after months of review by the Board of Regents and the state legislature.

In a statement released Friday, Adams said the budget "will help the university attract and retain excellent faculty and staff which will be of great benefit to students."

Adams also said in the statement that he was disappointed in the lack of funding increases for programs and their operating expenses.

"The University will have to adjust certain programmatic budgets in order to operate effectively this coming year," Adams said.

Items in the budget include:

n1.7 million for planning and design of the University’s $43 million student learning center. The center, described as the University’s top capital priority by Adams, will include nine standard classrooms, 20 distance learning classrooms, three computer labs and an electronic library.
$11 million for the Applied Genetic Technology Resource Center, an East Campus facility for advanced research on plant and animal genetics.
$4.9 million for a livestock instructional arena for the animal and dairy science department. The arena will replace the Coliseum livestock area and will be located on South Campus.
$9.3 million for major repair and rehabilitation of University facilities.

This is the first billion-dollar budget in the University’s history, according to Tom Jackson, executive director of University Communications.

"We’ve come slightly close before," Jackson said. "I would suspect this is one of the few budgets in the state to top a billion dollars."