News
Further budget cuts could mean layoffs, loss of programs
-
Print -
Comments
-
“The fact that the budget is depressed does not change the long-term goal or aspiration that we all share for the university.”
UB absorbed a $21 million permanent cut in state funding in 2008-09 with relatively little disruption to everyday life on campus, but the additional 5 permanent percent cut included in Gov. David A. Paterson’s 2009-10 budget proposal would leave the university no choice but to consider cutting positions and programs.
That was one of the messages President John B. Simpson delivered to about 400 faculty and staff members Tuesday during the first of three Town Hall meetings set for this week.
Simpson also told those attending the meeting in Slee Hall, North Campus, that the cuts in state funding will not affect the ultimate goal of UB 2020.
UB achieved the $21 million in cuts—approximately 10 percent of its operating budget—through efficiencies realized through such UB 2020 initiatives as the HR and IT transformations, by units using one-time money to plug some holes due to the loss of permanent funding, and by using reserve funds that were to be invested in UB 2020.
Those funds are gone forever and “the bills are coming due,” he noted.
“We have been lucky in what we look like right now,” he said. “In the future, we are going to have to consider every single imaginable change to the university in order to deal with a cut of the magnitude of 15 percent of our fundamental operating funds.
“We have to consider everything, such as elimination of positions,” he said. “We have to consider carefully every program, every unit; we have to understand how important and how necessary it is to our fundamental mission as an academic institution.”
UB has not seen this kind of hardship yet, Simpson said, but will in the future “unless for some reason these catastrophic kinds of cuts are prevented.”
He called Paterson’s budget proposal, which currently is being debated in the Legislature, “remarkably punitive to research universities” in comparison with comprehensive campuses. For example, UB would take a 5 percent cut in its base operating budget under the proposal, while Buffalo State College, a comprehensive university, would see a 2 percent increase, he said, with the difference in the funding for the two types of institutions due to “things that are being taxed and things are being cut” that are inherent to the way research universities do business and the way their finances are structured.
An additional problem, he explained, was that UB’s endowment, like that of all other colleges and universities, has lost money. The endowment declined approximately 30 percent, meaning the university has $12 million less in operating money from the endowment than it had two years ago.
“This is a source we depend upon, which simply will not be available,” Simpson said, noting that UB is in a better position than a university like Cornell, which depends much more heavily on endowment money for fundamental operating money.
Despite the dire economic news, Simpson was quick to point out that the depressed state budget does not change the long-term goal of UB 2020,
UB 2020 is a plan for the future, he said. “It is strategic, it is directional and at its core it is an academic plan. The point is to make this a bigger and a better university,” he said. “It is about academic quality. It is not a growth plan; it is not a capital plan. It is a strategic plan, the aim of which is academic success.”
Simpson admitted that resources are needed for the plan to succeed.
“The fact that right now, we have the kinds of budgetary rollbacks and issues we have does not in any way, shape or form change the ultimate goal of the plan we’ve put together over the last five years,” he said. “We have no way of predicting what the path is going to be like. The fact that the budget is depressed does not change the long-term goal or aspiration that we all share for the university, and I think our community applauds and endorses.”
After his remarks, Simpson fielded questions from faculty and staff.
Rebecca Bernstein of University Communications asked about the possibility of SUNY downsizing campuses as a way of dealing with the budget crisis.
Simpson said he would encourage incoming SUNY Chancellor Nancy Zimpher to consider downsizing so that “the whole could be made better, rather than simply dismantling everything” by giving all campuses more funding cuts.
In response to a question from Charles Smith, associate professor and chair of the Department of Music, asking if it was conceivable for UB to “divorce from SUNY,” Simpson suggested that a public-benefit corporation, like Roswell Park Cancer Institute, or a model like the statutory colleges at Cornell—where certain units of the university are state-supported—might be considered.
“I think there are myriad possibilities in how we might be able to enjoy better operating principles,” he said.
He noted that the A/S 2020 legislation currently under review in the Legislature “provides some of the kinds of regulatory changes university-wide for this campus that move in the direction allowing it to operate in the way in which our fellow research universities in virtually every other state are able to operate.”
Being part of SUNY is of value, he added, noting that at this time he does not want to push an agenda in which UB would secede from SUNY. “Rather, let’s try to figure out a way to work within it.” SUNY, like the state’s Higher Education Commission, “is sympathetic to the kinds of changes we’re trying to get. I want to see this play out first, before I think about any draconian kinds of change.”
Reader Comments