As a result, compensation increases for both faculty and staff will be Buhler's priority when the Legislature convenes next week. He plans to seek about $45 million in state money to cover raises, while $12 million would come in the form of tuition hikes.
"We are a people-intensive enterprise. Eighty percent of our budget is for faculty and staff," Buhler said in an interview. "We are competing in a national market.
"Top faculty are in demand and it can be expensive to keep them."
The success of Utah's institutions depends on attracting and retaining top researchers and professors, Buhler said. But with faculty earning about 80 to 90 percent of their counterparts nationally, Utah professors have become ripe targets.
"It is a real problem. As the stature of the University of Utah has grown . . . we have become a bigger target for raiding by the elite schools," said David Pershing, U. senior vice president for academic affairs.
The state's flagship university recently lost two chemistry professors, Sheila David and Peter Beal, to the University of California-Davis.
"I had a faculty member [in the math department] who was offered $100,000 more than he was making here from two other schools," Pershing said. "We didn't lose him. We fought back."
Over the past four years, faculty at the U. have seen raises totaling 11.7 percent on average, according to a recent Tribune analysis.
Next year, higher education officials want to promise the 5 percent raises that the governor recommends for other state employees, plus an additional 1 percent for "retention" raises. These compensation increases would result in tuition hikes of between 4 and 5 percent, above whatever increases the universities needs to meet operating expenses.
"We're concerned about pricing people out of college," Buhler told the subcommittee.
"I hope you're concerned about pricing taxpayers out of higher education," replied Rep. John Dougall, a Highland Republican. "Is this money coming from a taxpayer subsidy of higher education? Are taxes higher to pay higher salaries?"
