After a week of discussion, the Higher Education Appropriations Subcommittee approved a second round of budget cuts for Utah’s colleges and universities.
Legislators trimmed more than $8.8 million by cutting 2 percent of each institution’s total budget?$3.3 million of which would come from the U’s budget. This reduction is the second cut of the fiscal year, adding to the governor’s 2.5 percent cut in August.
The revised budget will be presented to the Executive Appropriations Committee for approval today. The state Senate and House of Representatives will then vote on the revised 2001-2002 fiscal year budget in the later this month.
But the proposed budget didn’t slide through the committee’s hands without objections. Four committee members voted against the second-round budget slash because they felt the cuts were too deep.
Rep. Patrice Arent, D-Salt Lake, said she could not support a bill that cut so drastically into the institutions’ budgets. “There are other options,” she said. One of her suggestions is to follow Gov. Mike Leavitt’s advice to use money from the state’s rainy day fund to compensate for the tax revenue shortfall.
But the four votes were not enough to stop the proposed legislation from being handed on to the executive committee.
However, the committee did unanimously approve a motion to give the presidents of each state institution temporary power to cut their budgets as they wish.
In order to enact such legislation, the Senate and House must approve the committee’s bill by a two thirds majority.
Paul Brinkman, U associate vice president for budget and planning, remains doubtful the presidents will be given this power.
“It would help,” he said, “but chances are it won’t happen.”
When the second cut was first announced, U President Bernie Machen proposed the U loan money to cover the $3.3 million cut from its budget. However, since then the state economic picture has cleared, and it became apparent that the U may not be able to pay back the loan next year, Brinkman said.
U officials now propose to cut departments across the board, reallocate some one time funding, delay classroom refurbishing and remodeling as well as reduce allocations to faculty retention pool to cover the second cut.
At the close of the meeting, Cecelia Foxely, commissioner of higher education, pleaded with the committee to find one-time monies to help carry colleges and universities through this tough year.
Statewide enrollment grew more than 8 percent this year. Institutions face record numbers of students with a continually diminishing budget. In total, state colleges budgets have been cut 4 percent since July 2001.
The worst part about the budget situation is that next year looks the same, Brinkman said. “It looks like there will be no new money for the state to allocate to higher education.”