By Jonathan Smith, Managing Editor

Financial difficulties forced all departments to cut their budgets by 8 percent for this school year. Departments could choose where the cut came from and have handled the cuts differently.

Departments from the College of Arts and Sciences can take the money from either their operating budget or from money received from the technology and enrichment fee students pay at the beginning of each year, said Dr. Colleen Durrington, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Durrington said the dean’s office took care of about one-third of the college’s budget cut, and the rest was split up for each department to decide how to handle it.

Departments with higher operating budgets will be affected more heavily, but Durrington said the cuts should not cause major problems.

“It’s a small amount in most departments, so it will not be a major concern,” Durrington said.

Durrington said they will not be too concerned with the cuts because students should not see the effects of the cuts, and financial problems are not currently only a problem at ACU.

“No one likes to have money taken out of their budget,” Durrington said. “But this is not just unique to ACU; it’s happening all over the United States.”

In the College of Business Administration, the departments themselves did not have to cut their budgets directly, said Dr. Rick Lytle, dean of COBA.

“We didn’t touch the departments directly,” Lytle said.

Lytle said the money was taken from a budget on the college level rather than the departmental.

“We took it out of a central budget that reduced spending for all of us,” Lytle said.