Leaders of public universities, including Kansas University, on Tuesday made their pitches for increased funding for specific projects while also bemoaning the decreasing share of funding from the state.

“We are now in the area of being a state-assisted university instead of a state-supported university,” said Wichita State University President John Bardo.

The school leaders made their presentations during a budget session of the Kansas Board of Regents.

Regents Chairman Kenny Wilk said the board would consider the proposals and work on them more during a regents retreat next month before finalizing a budget recommendation in September to send to Gov. Sam Brownback.

Higher education in Kansas was hit hard by budget cuts during the recession and continues to face fiscal uncertainty as state revenues fall because of tax cuts proposed by Brownback and passed by the Legislature.

State funding at KU remains below pre-recession levels — $249 million in the current fiscal year as compared with $273 million in 2008.

Even so, KU Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little said KU would assume stable state funding in the near future.

“The University of Kansas is in some ways at a crossroads,” Gray-Little said. “We are in a state that has not been investing in higher education at a level that some states have,” she said. She said research universities also have faced further constraints because of federal budget cuts.

KU’s highest priority budget requests were received favorably by board members.

KU is seeking $5 million per year to help fund a Drug and Vaccine Discovery Institute.

Provost Jeff Vitter said the institute had the potential to be “truly world-changing,” by producing vaccines to improve health and boost the Kansas economy by attracting pharmaceutical firms.

“There are about 100 different reasons to like it,” Regent Fred Logan said.

For 2016, KU is also requesting $7 million per year to help build two new science buildings.

The top budget priority for the KU Medical Center is $3.4 million for a 3 percent merit-based pay raise for certain faculty and staff.

Dr. Douglas Girod, executive vice chancellor of the Medical Center, said he is losing too many instructors to other schools because of salary issues.

“We get good people, we train good people and we lose good people,” Girod said.

Here are some of the other top requests from regents universities:

— $5 million to strengthen the College of Architecture, Planning and Design at Kansas State University

— $16.7 million for construction of an innovation center and increasing doctoral research fellowships at Wichita State University

— $2 million to expand the capacity in health-related programs at Pittsburg State University

— $500,000 for the Newman Division of Nursing at Emporia State University

— $334,000 to expand the Graphic Design program at Fort Hays State University

— $15 million for the proposed merger of Dodge City Community College and FHSU. Of that amount, $10 million would be for construction of a new higher education building in Dodge City.