Gov. Bev Perdue signed a state budget into law Wednesday that N.C. State officials say will likely lead to a tuition increase next year. The budget includes a provision to distribute $70 million in cuts to campuses in throughout the UNC system. It’s a far cry from the $175 million cut recommended by the state House earlier in the process. Although the budget does increase the total funding allocated to the UNC system overall by more than $10 million, the cuts come from a mandate restricting potential cuts to the administrative levels of the university system’s campuses. Many University officials see the budget as a victory for the university system. Charles Leffler, vice chancellor for finance and business, said the ability to increase tuition will help the University deal with the reduction. ”The fact that we did get some authority for tuition increase and all those flexible measures will help us deal with that budget reduction,” Leffler said. However, Leffler said constant cuts are beginning to take their toll and he still expects this reduction to impact everybody. ”We’re going to work as we have been to minimize impacts on our employees,” said Leffler. “There will be some impact on everybody, because two years in a row legislation has allowed no salary increases for the University.” One option for reducing strain on the University would be a tuition increase. Leffler said he fully expects there to be an increase of some degree to maintain the level of teaching. ”There certainly will have to be a tuition increase to protect the quality of the teaching,” Leffler said. Chancellor Randy Woodson said the University will foot almost $14 million of the $70 million budget reduction. ”If I look at the numbers, allocated evenly, it will be about $13.8 million,” Woodson said.Woodson said that tuition hikes were proposed by the legislation but must be approved before being open to implementation by the University. ”That’s what the legislation has proposed,” Woodson said. “But that’s subject to the approval of the president [Erskine Bowles] of the UNC system. Woodson acknowledged that a tuition increase is possible because of the cuts, and also said many University programs are already struggling. ”We’re already struggling to offer all the segments necessary for students to graduate,” Woodson said. Woodson also said there were positives that came out of the budget with increases for enrollment growth and for the engineering department. Student Body President Kelly Hook also said she was happy about the result.

“I’m happy with the way it turned out,” Hook said. “I’m really proud of our legislature. I think they struck a compromise that we can be happy with. They really took care of us, our University especially.”