(a) The governing boards of the public institutions of higher education shall submit to the commission through their appropriate administrative officers, not later than 90 days prior to each legislative session, its budget proposals for the operation and capital needs of the institution under its governance or supervision.

(b) The commission shall receive, evaluate and coordinate budget requests for the public institutions of higher education of this state, shall hold open hearings on the budget requests of the separate institutions and shall present to each institution and to the Governor and the Legislature, a single unified budget report containing budget recommendations for separate appropriations to each of the institutions. The consolidated budget and analysis of the commission shall be accompanied by the original requests and their justifications as submitted by each institution. The recommendations of the commission shall be derived directly from its assessment of the actual funding needs of each of the universities, as presented to it by the presidents, which assessment may include, but shall not be limited to, derived conclusions that may be based upon standard techniques of objective measurement, need and unit cost figures arrived at through the use of comparative and verified data secured from the various institutions, applied in an impartial and objective manner, and comparison shall be made not only between similar functions of institutions in Alabama but also between Alabama institutions and similar functions of institutions located in other states, provided that nothing herein shall be construed to prohibit any institutions of higher education in this state from submitting any matter pertaining to the financial operation and needs of said institution to the Legislature or to the Governor at any time.