The action also boosts the potential for the overall higher-education budget getting a stamp of approval when it goes before the Legislative Executive Appropriations Committee.

"It's not done yet," said an elated but cautious Higher Education Commissioner Richard Kendell, before adding, "The committee said we were reasonable in our approach and that our budget figures made a great deal of sense."

Along with the $34.5 million in new ongoing money, the committee also signed off on the Regents' fiscal 2006 base budget of $904.3 million.

The committee's action came after nearly three hours of hand-wringing over the uncertainty of how much money would be available for higher education, once transportation gets its share, followed by Medicaid and public education.

All panel members could do was move forward on higher education's priorities, said Sen. Gregory Bell, R-Fruit Heights.

But Sen. Ron Allen, D-Stansbury Park, interjected that the budget request represented a "consensus" between the Regents, college presidents and students.

"Let's adopt the Regents' request and make adjustment when we have new [state] budget numbers on Feb. 14," said Allen.

Sen. Peter Knudson, R-Brigham City, concurred.

The Senate leadership already is looking at a salary and benefit package for public employees.

"We will be fine tuning all budget requests," Knudson said.

sykes@sltrib.com