MADISON — Harvey Jewett wasn’t shy as he recently told other members of the state Board of Regents that he’s disappointed by the governor’s budget recommendations for South Dakota’s public universities.

In turn, Terry Baloun, who’s succeeded Jewett as board president, did his diplomatic best to keep the discussion balanced at the Board of Regents’ meeting. He said the main thing is that the universities be treated fairly during state government’s deep financial difficulties.

The other seven regents generally steered clear of any comments publicly about the budget. Jewett and Baloun were civil in their comments and toward each other, but their discussion reflected the difficult, and politically sensitive, push and pull faced by the university system entering the 2010 session of the Legislature that opens Jan. 12.

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“We’re all in the time we’re in. We’re all going to get through the time we’re in,” Baloun said.

For the 2011 state budget that starts July 1, 2010, Gov. Mike Rounds has proposed no salary increases for state government employees, including university faculty and staff, for the second year in a row.

The governor also recommended taking away from the universities $500,000 of performance funding, cutting utility payments slightly and adding a doctorate program in physics.

Students at South Dakota’s state universities already pay an extra fee to provide additional salary to faculty members so that their pay is closer to comparable positions in neighboring states.

Jewett, an Aberdeen businessman, said two consecutive years of no state-pay increases puts South Dakota at a competitive disadvantage after years of efforts by the regents, students and university leaders to narrow the gap so that better faculty can be recruited and retained.

“I think that forebodes some problems for us if we’re at zero and everybody around us are getting a raise,” he said.

Baloun, a retired banker previously from Aberdeen who now lives in Sioux Falls and rural Faulk County, said he’s asked regents administrative staff to assemble a report on pay, furloughs, cuts and other financial conditions at public universities in neighboring states.

“We want to see what the whole range is about,” Baloun said.

Jack Warner, the regents’ executive director, said South Dakota’s six university presidents agree that salary policy is their top budget priority. “But I think we’re up against a set of tough fiscal conditions that are going to make that difficult indeed,” Warner said.

Jewett said the governor’s recommendations leave the universities short of utility funding by about $1 million again. If that is the final decision by the Legislature, Jewett said the universities will have been short by about that much annually for 14 years, and almost that much every year for health insurance during that same span of time.

“The students paid $25 million extra and the Legislature knew it,” Jewett said. “It’s a $2 million a year ticket the students have to pay.”

He also observed that the $970,000 of increased funding which the governor recommended for the new physics Ph.D. program is only about one-third of the money that actually will be needed when the program is fully running.

“This is a very disappointing deal and I frankly think we ought to forego the physics deal,” Jewett said. He suggested the physics money should instead go toward the utilities shortfall.

The physics program would be operated jointly by South Dakota School of Mines and Technology in Rapid City, South Dakota State University at Brookings and the University of South Dakota at Vermillion.

Its purpose is to fit with the Homestake underground science laboratory, which is being built in the old gold mine at Lead. The lab project is strongly supported by the National Science Foundation and by several federal government agencies.

Baloun worked to steer the discussion back on course in support of the physics program addition. He said South Dakota has “a tremendous investment in the mine and a tremendous opportunity in the mine.”

“We feel this (the physics Ph.D.) should advance forward (to the Legislature) and see what happens. Who knows how it’s all going to play out,” Baloun said.