[Mathregionals] Budget Updates

[Eisworth, Todd]

Hi all,

This one is important.

The past couple of days have been filled with meetings learning the details behind the President's budget email.  The numbers as I understand it are as follows (please take them as an order-of-magnitude, as I'm relying on memory):


  *   The university was already 26 million in the red for this FY, and was tapping reserves to cover costs.  This was the driver behind the personnel cuts that have been on everyone's minds the past two years.


  *   Since the advent of CoVID, this has ballooned to 60 million for this FY, ending June 30.  This is due to the state taking back 8 million, refunding dorm fees and loss of revenue, and costs associated with moving instruction on-line.


  *   In addition, the state is asking all universities to plan for a 20% cut in SSI next year. When combined with other losses, this puts us at least 60 million in the red for next FY as well.



  *   In addition, we expect a large drop in the number of students enrolling, on the order of 15-20%.  That is not included in the 60 million figure above.



  *   If nothing is done, the University will be out of reserves within two years.

It is bad enough that the university will look totally different next year, with drastic changes across the board.
We have enough reserves to survive, but everything will be hit in a drastic way, including athletics and administration.

The Provost and the Deans are working on plans on the academic side of things; this includes "unpausing" the personnel decisions that were paused back in April.

It is a very uncertain time, and right now this is what I know:


  1.  The college plan contains  further personnel cuts in math as we are already down six faculty members and one early retiree going into next year.


  1.  RHE budgets are still separate, and I have no information on what RHE campuses are planning.



  1.  Nothing should be considered finalized until the Provost signs off on things; May 15th is the deadline for issuing any non-renewal letters. It is possible that she asks the colleges to cut deeper, and I have been working on some contingency plans for that situation should the dean ask us for more.


What I think I know is:


  1.  I expect furloughs will be mandated next year as well. For faculty, this is essentially a pay cut as we are expected to do our assigned teaching and furlough during "research and service time".  Our university has policies governing this, and I believe faculty senate is revisiting the issue.


  1.  I expect that some departments may lose probationary faculty as well, given the size of the budget deficit and expected enrollment drop.  This underlines the seriousness of the situation.



  1.  I expect that there will be major reorganizations (colleges merging,  departments merging, office functions merging) but those will be put in place over the next year.



  1.  I expect that many smaller institutions will be unable to survive the next year.  Even with our budget troubles, we went into this with 300-odd million in accessible reserves. Other places do not have that support.



This is happening all over the world right now, at institutions of every size.  It is the new reality, and we'll need to be flexible and responsive to make it through the next 36 months.

I know that finals week ends tomorrow, but we may need to talk as a department next week once I get some more information.

Best,

Todd


















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