By Paul A. Anthony, Editor in Chief
The university announced Tuesday a wide-ranging restructuring plan designed to save more than $5 million next year. It includes the deepest cuts to faculty and staff in more than 10 years.
The plan was first implemented with early retirement options for faculty and staff announced in December and includes 58 other items that range from eliminating the university’s centralized tutoring programs to cutting athletic scholarships and cutting back in areas dealing with international students.
“I want to be careful not to convey the wrong message,” President Royce Money told faculty and staff in announcing the proposed moves. “I personally do not believe or expect there will be many shifts in the plan I have gone through today.”
The final decisions depend on the results next week of the early retirement offer and Board of Trustee approval in February.
The announcement culminates five months of work by the 13 strategic teams Money organized in August to study every facet of the university for cost savings and revenue enhancement. The list presented Tuesday includes recommendations from every team, as selected by the President’s Cabinet.
According to the plan, the largest departmental cut comes in the Department of Athletics, where $351,000 could be saved, mostly through a 10 percent reduction in scholarships.
An additional $350,000 would be cut in the University Studies division, where the Department of Academic Advance and the Learning Enhancement Center are slated for elimination. Restructuring to the Bachelor of Applied Studies, Distance Education and Professional and Continuing Education programs also would save money but cost jobs, said Phil Schubert, vice president of finance.
Money said in Tuesday’s meeting and in an open forum with faculty and staff Wednesday that faculty and staff would be reduced by about 25 employees as a result of early retirement and the potential cutbacks.
According to the recommendations and interviews with administration officials, jobs would be lost in University Studies; in Marketing or Recruiting; in the Institute for Effective English, which runs the English as a Second Language program; and in the offices of Career Services and Career and Academic Development, which would be combined.
The recommendations also include: a one-time 25 percent reduction in capital expenditures, which are used for physical improvements to campus; reducing the raise pool for university employees by more than half; reducing retirement benefits for future employees; and increasing revenue by creating additional off-campus and Internet courses.
In all, the list would save the university $5,494,614, about $500,000 more than needed to reach its goal of generating a $2 million operating margin.
As currently projected for 2004-05, the university would run a $3 million budget deficit unless cuts are made.
“The bottom line is we have a $5 million indebtedness we have less than 6 months to fix,” Money told employees Wednesday. The budget for next year goes into effect June 1 and must be approved by the Board of Trustees in its February meeting.
The Board’s finance committee has given approval to the recommendations released this week, Money said.
Causes defined
In his Tuesday address, Money detailed the causes of the current budget crunch, detailing $2.45 million in utility, insurance and health care costs and $2.55 million in “strategic investments” in multicultural enrichment, the College of Business Administration, recruiting and scholarships.
Money also stressed the common nature of the university’s budget problems, reading from a list of schools instituting tens of millions of dollars in budget cuts and hundreds of layoffs such as Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
“These are not poor schools,” Money said.
Nevertheless, this round of budget cuts, the second in three years, is the steepest since 1993, when the university faced a budget crisis that required moves as drastic as reducing the number of colleges from five to three and instituting an early retirement program similar to the one implemented this year.
Throughout this year’s budget discussion, officials have been careful to characterize the moves this year as proactive-anticipating a problem and acting beforehand-as opposed to 1993’s reactive measures.
“The challenge we face is a challenge of prosperity,” Money said Tuesday, “rather than a challenge of instability.”
Programs cut
The cuts to University Studies present an adjustment of the tutoring program, not an elimination, said Jack Rich, executive vice president of the university.
“We’ve done a lot of support for underprepared students in the last five years,” Rich said, noting the addition of the First-Year Program for freshmen, Student Success for underprepared students and an increase in admission standards. “We didn’t have as many students that had as big a need.”
Tutoring programs instead will shift to the academic departments, especially the departments of English and Math and Computer Science. Administrators and department faculty are discussing specifics on how the program will work, said Dr. Carol Williams, chair of the Academic Programs strategic team, which recommended the ACAD and LEC cuts, among others.
The teams were asked to reach a certain goal in savings; Academic Programs’ goal was highest at $1.7 million, Williams said. Among the team’s accepted recommendations: creating the early retirement program, restructuring University Studies and cutting musical group The Light.
The committee met 10 times in three months for two hours each, compiled data, prepared reports and talked to members of each program to which the team seriously considered cuts, Williams said.
“I knew it was going to be a difficult task with us-a big challenge,” she said. “They’re not decisions we made lightly or relished.”
