Budget cuts are coming, but the money is there, for now.
The University of Idaho faces a budget shortfall of around $1 million to $2 million every year, but funding reserves, whose sole purpose is to cover shortfalls, have run dry.
“It’s not likely to grow enrollment if we’re going to take resources away, so we’ve had unbalanced budgets eight of the last nine years,” said Brian Foisy, UI vice president of finance. “That policy has sort of reached an end. We have to do things differently.”
Foisy said this year, the Provost’s office and the office of Strategic Enrollment Management will cover the projected $1.1 million shortfall with their individual reserves.
Next year, however, deans will need to have their own plans. Foisy said for the first year, they will likely dip into their own colleges’ savings accounts, which hold a growing $24.5 million, including the Provost’s office and SEM.
After that, cuts will take effect.
In February, Provost and Executive Vice President John Wiencek asked the deans of the colleges to submit proposals for savings.
Foisy said this year’s shortfall was smaller than expected due to an unusually low fall-to-spring dropout rate. He said next year’s shortfall is likely to fall within $1 million to $2 million. Fiscal year 2020, which Wiencek wants deans to address, is expected to be between $2 million and $4 million, Foisy said.
Wiencek suggested deans consider one alternative to typical cuts — consolidation. If two colleges were to merge, savings could be found in the cutting of one of the two dean positions and in various support provided to the colleges. The opportunity here lies primarily in colleges with deans absent or leaving.
Brian Foisy | University of Idaho
College of Natural Resources Dean Kurt Pregitzer announced his retirement last month, drawing attention to the possibility of a merger between CNR and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. However, Wiencek later told Faculty Senate this would be detrimental to the individual reputations of the two colleges, which is necessary for their interactions with Idaho businesses and lawmakers.
The other clear opportunity? A merger between the smaller College of Art and Architecture and the College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences. CLASS Dean Andrew Kersten is leaving for the University of Missouri-St. Louis and AA currently operates without a dean.
Interim Dean of the College of Art and Architecture Shauna Corry said she sees benefits to a merger beside cost savings, and the deans have discussed the idea of a merger without regard to saving costs.
“The problem with being a small college is having the resources. Not just the resources to sustain, but to have the resources to dream on,” Corry said. “When you have the capacity to share resources and work with other people, you have the capacity to work on other things and dream bigger.”
Corry said deans agreed a merger decision should be made based on what’s best for students, and said she hopes next year students will be involved in any conversations about a college merger.
Corry, meanwhile, is in a unique position. As a rule, universities don’t hire interims into permanent positions, so Corry can advocate for the elimination of the college dean position without putting her own job at risk.
Wiencek said a merger would not be a feasible solution for next year’s shortfall but is certainly on the table for fiscal year 2020.
“If we were to consolidate two colleges, the administrative ripples would be horrendous. There isn’t enough time to do that in time for fiscal year ‘19,” Foisy said. “But for fiscal year 20, we can talk about budget cuts or mergers or zero-base budgeting.”
Zero-base budgeting would require colleges justify every dollar every year.
“If we have to do [cuts], we would be having to reallocate money that we all have plans for,” Corry said. “The deans were saying, ‘Let’s look elsewhere.’”
Corry said one idea the deans came up with was to use retirement incentives – a cost cutting measure used by many universities in which money is allocated to incentivize high-salary professors to retire to be replaced by lower-salary associate professors.
Foisy said the Provost’s office and the deans will work out plans for each college over the next 10 months.
Nishant Mohan can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NishantRMo