A captain is navigating his ship through choppy waters. The waves are crashing, the storm is beating down upon the ship and morale is low.
But rather than letting the captain decide how best to steer his ship and lead the crew, the ship’s landlubbing owners call the shots.
Is this a good maritime practice? No. Nor is it good academic practice.
Today U President Bernie Machen will address the Higher Education Appropriations Committee at the state Legislature.
He will present his recommendations for how funding cutbacks should affect the U’s budget for the current fiscal year and the 2002-2003 fiscal year.
Because of the slowing economy the state has fewer discretionary dollars to play with. State cutbacks require Machen to begin trimming next year’s budget before it is announced.
U administrators have already cut $5.4 million from the current year’s budget at the request of Gov. Mike Leavitt. Because of the state’s ever-sliding tax revenue shortfall, legislators are asking for more?nearly 2 percent more.
Machen knows he can’t pull 2 percent out of this year’s budget?and he can’t give students a mid-semester tuition increase. To solve the current year’s budget problems, he wants to take out a loan. From now until July he has time to decide where the cuts will be for next year.
And he should make that decision, not the Legislature.
The state pays Machen more than $250,000 every year as CEO of a $1 billion per year corporation. CEOs get the big bucks for a reason. They are trusted and?in an intelligent business model?empowered to do what’s best for the organizations they lead.
The high salary recognizes Machen’s qualifications to make the big decisions.
State lawmakers need to grant Machen the ability to decide where to cut his corporation’s budget and where not to.
The Chronicle is confident that the state Legislature will do the right thing to help the U through these stormy economic times?they will let Machen do the job they pay him a lot of money to do. We are confident they will let him steer his ship.