GCSU braces for budget cuts

After weeks of discussion about state funding of Georgia’s higher education system, GCSU President Dorothy Leland released a budget plan that could possibly cut an additional $5,356,378 from GCSU’s budget, according to the Board of Regents. The plan calls for a total budget reduction of over $9 million for the 2011 fiscal year.

Every institution in the University System of Georgia was asked to submit a budget listing of what each university or college would have to cut if the state reduced the system’s budget by an additional $300 million. The reductions would be in addition to the $265 million already cut from the system by Gov. Sonny Perdue. These “worst-case scenario” budgets were to be created under the assumption that tuition would not be raised.

GCSU’s worst-case scenario budget would eliminates 23 staff and 17 faculty positions. The reduction of the faculty positions, a 6 percent decrease in GCSU faculty, would result in the elimination of several degrees. While many University System institutions listed the degrees that were at risk, Leland said she felt it would be “premature” for GCSU to list specific degrees.

The elimination of positions could threaten the national accreditation of certain programs, such as nursing, education and business, because the programs require a certain student-faculty ratio.

Also incorporated into the worst-case scenario budget is a reduction of 1 percent in the operating budget, which is where funding for the repair and replacement of equipment, including technology, comes from.

If the university’s budget gets cut the highest possible amount, GCSU plans on using almost $3 million of its financial reserves set aside for emergencies. According to the budget plan, this “exposes the institution to unacceptable risk” because money would be unavailable for a major repair, such as a pipeline break or fuel-cost increase.

Still, Leland said she finds it “highly unlikely” that tuition won’t increase because higher education institutions are funded by the state and student tuitions.

“When the funding from the state drops as dramatically as it has over the past few years, then one would expect either drastic cutbacks in (student) programs and services or an increase in tuition,” Leland said.

It will be up to the state Board of Regents to set tuition costs after the state budget for the next fiscal year has been determined by the Legislature.

Leland said the university has already eliminated about 17 percent of administrative positions and many open faculty positions have intentionally not been filled in order to help cut back costs. This has forced professors to take heavier course loads and some students have struggled to enroll in the classes they need.

For the last few years, GCSU has tried to keep enrollment steady, a tricky task that depends on whether prospective students accept their admission and current students return. According to Leland, the university tries to not “grow the undergraduate program” as it is at its capacity. Currently there are over 5,000 undergraduate students enrolled at GCSU.

In addition, the university has cut costs by reducing the number of print publications, opting to publish more online. For publications that need to be printed, the university either reduces the number of colors used or prints them in black and white in order to keep costs low.

According to officials, it will be two or three weeks until institutions will know more details of the final budget cuts for the system. Until then the specifics of the possibilities laid out in the budget plan will remain unclear. However, Leland said the worst-case scenario budget is “just that.”

“I think it’s important that we don’t needlessly spread panic,” Leland said. “We need to be concerned but we don’t need to panic. We just need to wait and see how this develops and once we have a clear picture, we can take strategic and responsible actions.”

Leland encouraged members of the community to speak to elected officials about the importance of higher education. Budget deliberations are expected to continue throughout March.

“We’ve always had two guiding principles throughout this very difficult budget time. One is to do the very least amount of harm to instruction. Education is our mission, so when we’ve cut, we’ve tried to shield instruction from cuts,” Leland said. “And we’ve also tried as much as possible to protect the jobs of our employees. We hope that we’ll be able to continue to honor those principles.”

After the state budget goes into effect every year on July 1, state legislators return later to amend the budget by increasing or decrease the funding given, depending on the amount of revenue the state is seeing, Leland said at the University Senate meeting in February.

“It’s clear it’s going to be another rough year in Georgia, and that will affect all the citizens of Georgia, certainly all the state employees of Georgia and certainly everybody in the University System of Georgia,” Leland said.

In an e-mail sent out this past Monday, Leland explained that the January revenue total for Georgia was “considerably low” compared to the revenue totals for 2009 and it is expected that the February revenue figures will continue to decline.

When University System Chancellor Erroll Davis met with a joint House-Senate budget committee Feb. 24, he said Georgia colleges and universities would need to increase their tuition in order to account for the cuts from the higher education budget.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Sen. Seth Harp, R-Midland, told Davis that another $200-$300 million would be cut from the system’s budget and that it is up to the system to decide where these cuts come from. Harp said that anything that can be cut is on the table, from salary cuts to the closing and consolidations of schools. According to state Rep. Rusty Kidd, I-Milledgeville, these additional cuts are the “worst-case scenario.”

With the state legislature discussing possible cuts in the state budget, Kidd does not believe the cuts should be within the higher education budget and will express his opinion when the budget is presented to the full Legislature.

Young people getting a proper education is crucial, so I think education is one of, if not the last thing, that should be cut,” Kidd said in a phone interview.

Kidd said he believes that tuition may have to be raised a little, but that the state revenue could get back to what it was in 2006 if sales taxes are increased 2 percent. Kidd said once state revenues reached the 2006 level, the 2 percent increase would be removed.

“I do believe that (the) Georgia Legislature at some point in time is going to have to bite the bullet and raise fees or taxes or something in the very near future to keep them from spiraling down a bigger and deeper hole that it seems like we’re going in,” Kidd said.

Posted by Allison Bramlett on Mar 5 2010. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry