The Indiana University trustees unanimously approved a $4.7 billion operating budget, around 3.5 percent higher than the current fiscal year.

IU Chief Financial Officer Jason Dudich said that was largely driven by increased tuition for out-of-state students. In-state tuition remained flat, as promised by the university.

But IU maintained $118 million in budget cuts to compensate for the loss last year of some state and federal funding. Dudich also said IU will make up part of the loss by using more funds from the IU Foundation and revenue from athletics.

The university did approve a three percent base salary adjustment pool for faculty and staff to be absorbed by campuses or units, "to be allocated based on performance or merit." All employees will receive at least a 1.5 percent raise.

Read more: IU lags on academic spending, despite excellent finances

Before voting, Trustee James Bopp, Jr., had some questions for his colleagues about budget allocations to IU Inc., a nonprofit they created in February to align research with the Department of War, commercialize bioscience research and supervise IU Real Estate.

“You explained that there were anticipated transfers of cash from IU to IU Inc. in fiscal year ’27,” Bopp said. “Could you summarize how much the budget contemplates?”

Trustee J. Timothy Morris said those numbers were presented to the trustees in February and it was not the time to discuss IU Inc. Bopp replied that it was pertinent to the budget.

“We voted on this in February when the IU Inc. affiliate was approved,” trustee Marilee Springer said.

“That’s not true,” Bopp said. “I clarified with President Whitten that that motion was approving IU Inc. as a university-related entity. It did not include approval of any budget.”

Morris said the amount was $17.5 million.

Trustees also voted on changes to the retirement plan, but it did not explain what those would be. Board chair David Hormuth said the changes were laid out in the appendix to the meeting agenda, which was not released prior to the public session.

University spokesperson Mark Bode provided a comment that the vote was to establish a 415(m) retirement plan as an additional option for some employees.

The budget is not yet publicly available but will be shared eventually on the university website.