COLUMBIA, S.C. - Clemson University officials again plan to ask the state Budget and Control Board on Tuesday to approve $10.3 million in state bonds to fund a Restoration Institute at the old Charleston Naval Base, where the school would take over conservation of the Confederate submarine H.L. Hunley.

The five-member board, led by Gov. Mark Sanford, sidelined a decision last month because the school had not yet received final approval from the city of North Charleston. In a contract signed since, the city committed to give Clemson 82 acres of the former base - appraised at $15 million - which includes a lab where the Hunley is being restored.

The school would upgrade the lab and assume its current employees' salaries, totaling $265,000, Clemson spokeswoman Debbie Dalhouse said.

Clemson wants to establish a center focusing on environmental science, materials technology and urban redevelopment that could eventually generate thousands of jobs. Graduate students would work with faculty at the institute to restore buildings and artifacts using a restoration technology developed by Clemson scientists, Dalhouse said.

"I think it gives South Carolina an opportunity to make a giant leap forward," said Senate Pro Tem Glenn McConnell, a Charleston Republican who runs the commission that oversees the Hunley restoration. "Clemson is offering the city and the state the opportunity to leverage millions of dollars of private money with public money to bring in this research and the jobs that will follow."

McConnell and Dalhouse said the Hunley, raised from the Atlantic Ocean in 2000, will be restored no matter what the Budget and Control Board decides.

Clemson scientists, who have worked at the site since 2002, are contracted to restore the Hunley by 2013, Dalhouse said.

Clemson's patent-pending technology, which uses temperature and pressure to more efficiently remove corrosive salts from artifacts, could stop or reverse decay on artifacts and serve museums around the world, Dalhouse said.

But Sanford is concerned about what he calls "mission creep" of the state's public colleges. Last month, Sanford said Clemson's project was an example of how the state's colleges have been allowed to expand operations with little state oversight, which has added to tuition costs.

The governor has long advocated a central authority to oversee what colleges do, what they spend and where they grow.

Until the state develops a coordinated plan for its public colleges, "we don't think it makes sense to undertake this significant an expansion in Clemson's role," Sanford spokesman Joel Sawyer said Monday.

House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Cooper, R-Piedmont, said he plans to vote for approval.

"I don't think it has anything to do with academic programs directly. It's more about research and economic development," said Cooper, who compared the proposal to Clemson's successful International Center for Automotive Research campus in Greenville. "It's the kind of economy we're trying to place all over the state."

Comptroller General Richard Eckstrom, a constant Sanford ally on the board, said Monday he hadn't decided how to vote. He said he was still reviewing the economics of the proposal.

Outgoing Treasurer Grady Patterson, a Democrat who lost to Thomas Ravenel in November, sided with Sanford last month because the contract had not yet been signed. His spokesman, Trav Robertson, said Monday that Patterson remained undecided.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Hugh Leatherman, R-Florence, could not be reached Monday. But he has supported the proposal in the past.