MUNCIE, Ind. -- For the second straight year Ball State University trustees have held tuition increases to 4 percent. The tuition rate for 1998-99 and a 4 percent increase in the employee salary pool were among the items approved Friday by the Board of Trustees.

With those two crucial decisions resolved, the trustees then approved  a 1998-99 operating budget plan of $196.9 million, up from $190.8 million this year.

Indiana residents will pay $1,727 a semester to take classes at Ball State next year, an increase from $1,658 this year. Out-of-state students will pay $4,658 per semester.

"We have worked very hard in the last 2-3 years to keep our costs low," said university President John E. Worthen. "This represents the second year in a row we have limited the increase to 4 percent and kept it under 5 percent for the last three years."

The president said a Ball State education continues to be a bargain.

"When you consider that the financial aid office awarded $83 million in student aid last year, our costs are extremely affordable," said Worthen.

The budget plan, which is used as a guideline for developing a detailed budget for each department, includes $110.8 million in state appropriations for operations, an additional one-time allocation of $3.5 million for quality improvements in technology, and $1.4 million in state support for Burris Laboratory School.

A separate line item appropriation of $4.2 million for the  Indiana Academy for Science, Mathematics and Humanities was approved by the legislature.

Included in the university budget is the 4 percent increase in salary funding for faculty and professional personnel. Salary funding for staff personnel also will increase 4 percent, with a general salary hike of 3 percent for all employees with satisfactory performance evaluations and an additional 1 percent to be awarded based on merit.

The student wage rate remains $5.15 per hour.

In other action the board:

• renewed the university's life insurance, accidental death and dismemberment insurance, and salary continuance coverage for employees at the same rates as last year;
  
• changed the name of the Department of Speech Communication to the Department of Communication Studies;
  
• added "Sexual Orientation" to the univesity's Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action policy.