The budget shortfall: How departments are coping
Archived article from Nov 18, 2003
By Amy Vames
Also in this Article: New budgeting program targeted for spring 2004
Like waves that gradually eat away the shore, declining state appropriations have slowly eroded the operating budgets of the university’s departments, schools and colleges. And gloomy predictions that the state budget will continue to operate in deficit for fiscal year 2005 are instilling fears among administrators of an imminent tsunami that could pack a serious wallop.
After peaking in FY 2001, state appropriations have been cut each year. This year, Rutgers had to close a budget gap of more than $20 million. Tuition was raised 9 percent, but that still left $7.5 million to be made up through cuts throughout the university. President Richard L. McCormick allocated the percentages of those cuts with the idea of protecting the university’s academic mission as much as possible. Thus, instruction was cut by 0.85 percent; research, extension, the libraries and core student services by 1.98 percent; and administrative functions by 2.4 percent.
In addition to cutting the university’s appropriation for the current fiscal year, the state did not fund salary increases, continuing a multiyear trend. As a result, the university did not have the funds to provide general salary increases for 2003-04. “We were able to contain much of the damage this year by spreading the cuts widely throughout the university and by working hard to protect core academic areas,” McCormick said. “But this is the third consecutive year in which Rutgers saw state appropriations shrink despite rising costs. There is no doubt that Rutgers’ class sizes have grown, facilities have become unacceptably crowded and research resources have shrunk.
“The people of New Jersey deserve better,” he said. Focus asked several departments around the university to discuss some of the decisions they made in light of reduced budgets. While this is not a comprehensive list — nearly every department had to make some sacrifices — it provides a glimpse of how some areas of the university are coping.
The libraries, which many consider to be the very heart of a university, faced a major blow when their base budget was cut by nearly a half-million dollars. Bob Sewell, associate university librarian for collection development and management, said that the budget to cover the libraries’ academic journals, electronic databases and other essential purchases was particularly hard hit — with a cut of $250,000. Journals and databases are expensive and go up in price every year, he said. “We anticipate that we will need $450,000 just to cover price increases for our current subscriptions, so we were about $700,000 in the hole,” Sewell said.
Philip Furmanski, executive vice president for academic affairs, however, was able to allocate sufficient funds to cover the shortfall for this year. “Although resources are extremely limited, we did what we could to make certain that the library, a key resource for our scholarly and educational missions, could continue to serve our students and faculty effectively,” said Furmanski. “Putting together what we could from available resources, we found the needed funds this time, but there is no guarantee that we will be able to continue to fund these needs long term.”
Sewell is concerned about what further declining state appropriations would mean. “These cuts mean fewer resources for faculty and students,” Sewell said. “We try to buy things that are absolutely essential, but it’s hard to keep up with inflation on subscriptions, as well as with new degree programs, new faculty in new areas and the expansion of existing programs. All those require new collections of materials.”
Kyu Whang, interim vice president for facilities and capital planning, said that continued cuts to his department’s operating budget have made each year a little more difficult. Out of about 750 total staff members in facilities and capital planning, eight were laid off and 29 positions were left unfilled. There are fewer project managers to oversee capital projects and in-house designs. “We’ve had to tighten our belts, but fortunately, so far, we haven’t had to eliminate programs,” Whang said.
continued...
Page 1 of 3
Next >
|
