Hays ? Fort Hays State University plans to increase tuition, freeze staff and faculty salaries and leave three positions open to cover the $1.5 million the Legislature cut from the university’s budget.

The proposed 5.01 percent tuition and fees increase should decrease the university’s deficit to about $614,000.

President Edward Hammond said Wednesday that the university would have to raise tuition by 15 percent to cover the entire shortfall.

“I think it’s as good a budget as we could get,” he said.

Under the proposed budget, salaries for faculty, staff, graduate teaching assistants and student employees would remain the same, while overtime budgets would be cut.

Nonacademic budgets would be cut 1 percent. The university also would not fill one position in leadership studies, one in modern languages and one at the Kelly Center.

Fort Hays State also plans to withdraw from the Telenet 2 Consortium, which provides distance learning through K-State Research and Extension Service.

“The big things that we lose are no increase in salaries. We can’t continue to build on our quality, and we can’t invest in new programming,” Hammond said.

Nonetheless, he said he thought Fort Hays State would continue to grow, especially since it would have the lowest tuition increase of the six state universities.

“I think the combination of having reasonable tuition, together with our ability to protect our academic units, puts us in a good position,” Hammond said.