Dr. Phil Schubert spelled out details of a $9.6 million university-wide budget realignment plan Thursday in a meeting with staff and faculty.
Schubert, president of the university, showed the different areas of the university from which the money will be either cut or generated. Job eliminations and reductions will save the university $2.7 million, and university-wide reductions will lessen the budget by $1.5 million. About $1.2 million in specific program reductions and $1.1 in operating expense reductions also contribute to the $9.6 million overall plan.
About $1.1 million is expected to be generated from online program revenue and increased gifts and auxiliary, and $2 million will be added by changing financial policy, including adjusting how the university builds its contingency fund and changing the university’s endowment spending policy.
The new plan calls for 35 university positions to be cut; 25 staff and 10 faculty members will be let go by summer 2012 under the plan. Schubert acknowledged the decision to eliminate jobs would have a significant and personal impact on the entire university.
“We don’t ever want to be in a situation where we have to eliminate someone’s job,” he said. “But it’s impossible to avoid eliminating positions in a budget realignment plan on a $10 million scale.”
While moving forward with these adjustments, Schubert said he and the senior leadership team decided to pull back on a plan that would require administrative coordinators to reduce hours and salaries by 20 percent beginning next year.
“After considering the impact that would have had on everyone involved, we’re changing course,” he said. “We’re going to offer reduced workload and pay on a voluntary basis to all non-exempt staff.”
In the university-wide section of the plan, Schubert said iPhones won’t be offered to incoming freshmen in the 2013-14 school year as part of the Mobile Learning Initiative.
“A significant number of students already bring in similar devices, so we’re pulling back on that,” he said.
Schubert also said the team decided to slow capital growth spending by 10 percent, the university will charge a fee for students who pay tuition with credit cards, and there will be reduced fund allocation for cell phones for faculty and staff.
Smith and Adams Halls will be shut down after the completion of the 2011-12 academic school year as part of the specific program cuts to be made. Schubert said the remaining sophomore residence halls have sufficient room for incoming sophomore classes.
Schubert also said that Study Abroad and the Center for International Education will undergo a “radical shift” in its organization, management and funding.
“We’re not reducing the importance of these programs,” Schubert said. “There will still be the same amount of opportunity for students.”
The specific program cuts also include reductions in faculty requirements for the Core curriculum, and campus custodial services won’t clean offices as often.
In the operating expense reductions, information services will take an 11 percent cut and Student Life and finance and operations will lose 10 percent of funding. The executive division will be cut by eight percent and six percent of funds will be cut from both academics and marketing. Advancement faces a four percent decrease and athletics will lose two percent of funding.
“We don’t know what the future is going to look like, but this is a good plan,” Schubert said. “It wasn’t an option for us to sit where we were and decide this process was too painful. Some action needed to be taken.”
Schubert referenced the merging of several departments that will occur in the realignment. He said the mergers weren’t reflected in the cost savings.
Faculty and staff had submitted more than 80 questions for the university president since the plan was announced and the meeting scheduled. Schubert answered a few of the most common ones near the end of the meeting, when he temporarily dispelled talks of athletics moving up to Division-1 until $1.5 million more in gifts is secured and said that none of the administrators are taking pay cuts in this plan.
Schubert ended the meeting by saying that lower enrollment and the economy were to blame for the need for this realignment plan.
“We can’t have any flexibility in the overall quality of students we allow into the university,” he said. “When the demand lowers, so must our enrollment, which is making these cuts necessary.”
