MERCED -- University of California at Merced backers conceded Wednesday that the long-awaited campus must wait even longer.

"There's a light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel's a little longer now," UC Merced spokesman James Grant said. "A year, to be exact."

The state's 2003-04 budget specifies a $4 million reduction in UC Merced funding, with the savings to come from delaying the opening until fall 2005. The Legislature passed the budget this week, and Gov. Davis is expected to sign it today.

It was Davis who more than three years ago ordered a 2004 opening, a year earlier than planned.

The state Senate decided last week that the project can wait. Still, UC Merced Chancellor Carol

Tomlinson-Keasey remained optimistic that the Assembly would restore some or all the funding.

The Assembly did no such thing when it approved the state budget Tuesday.

"We're clearly disappointed that we will not be able to have students on campus in 2004," Tomlinson-Keasey said Wednesday. "But we are still intent on having quality academic programs and student services in 2005."

In the meantime, some of UC Merced's first undergraduate students -- already accepted for fall 2004 -- have some decisions to make about their educations, and the university will slow down on hiring.

The university has 120 undergraduates in a concurrent admissions program under which the students were supposed to transfer from community colleges to UC Merced in 2004.

Tomlinson-Keasey said it is "probably true for some that their educations will be delayed."

The university plans to assist the students, if they choose, in transferring to other UC cam-puses, or help the students make other plans, such as taking a year off or taking more courses at a community college, she said.

The university will accept graduate students in fall 2004, Tomlinson-Keasey said. UC San Diego opened in a similar fashion in the 1960s.

Tomlinson-Keasey said UC Merced will slow the pace of its recruiting and "look at what is a reasonable pace to hire over that period of time."

The hiring of additional fac- ulty and staff will need to con- tinue, although individual hires will be more spread out, she said. The plan is for faculty recruitment to continue this year, toward the hiring of faculty in 2004-05 and 2005-06.

The goal is to have 60 full-time faculty in place by fall 2005 to serve the 1,000 students anticipated to be on campus on opening day.

"It just doesn't work for the students, faculty and buildings to all arrive on the same day," she said.

Certain positions, such as those in the library, and in admissions and registration, will be delayed, the chancellor said.

Grant called the delay a "blip in the road," given that the project has been on the books since 1988.

While looking over the campus's first phase that today is a dusty construction site, Grant said UC Merced employees are "eternal optimists," having fought for the university since being hired three years ago.

"I think people here are disappointed, but given the budget crisis, we're thankful we're keeping the project moving," Grant said. "We feel like we're going to get it done."

At the construction site, workers are laying hundreds of feet of telecommunications wiring every day, as well as underground sewer and water pipes, Grant said.

The first foundations, for student housing, are set to be poured in the fall, he said.

The university previously secured $280 million in construction funding from the sale of lease revenue bonds. The new state budget allocates $17.3 million in operational and one-time funds for continued construction. The university had asked for $24.6 million, and the governor had pared the request to $21.3 million.

The university has a permit to build the first phase only -- a science-engineering building, classroom-office structure and library, plus student housing and a dining commons -- on the former site of the Merced Hills Golf Club.

The second phase, on 910 acres of range land to the east, still needs approval from federal authorities, who have jurisdiction because the project site takes in wetlands.