U administrators said students will almost inevitably face a second tuition increase before the beginning of Fall Semester.
Dave Pershing, senior vice president for academic affairs, said that a tuition increase in addition to the 9.3 percent increase announced in March is “probably 100 percent likely.”
Since lawmakers trimmed $256 million from the state budget in March, the tax revenue figures have continued to slide.
Gov. Mike Leavitt called legislators into a special meeting today to trim an additional shortfall of $157 million from the current year’s budget which ends in June.
Because the fiscal year is nearly over, lawmakers have said they will balance the budget by bonding, pulling funds away from construction projects and draining the remaining dollars from the state’s rainy day fund.
In June, the Legislature is expected to meet and rebalance the 2003 fiscal year budget by deeply cutting into state agencies funding.
During an address at the Utah Taxpayers Association conference last week, Leavitt illustrated the severity of the budget situation by saying that in order to cut $155 million of the state budget, lawmakers would need to force the layoffs of 1,200 public school teachers and shut down the College of Eastern Utah, as well as Dixie and Snow Colleges.
“I’m not suggesting we do that,” he said.
Just one week ago, U deans finished trimming $11 million from higher education’s budget when each department and program cut 4.7 percent of its budget.
A few programs were forced to layoff employees and most departments virtually eliminated their non-personnel budget designed for office supplies, travel money and phone expenses.
“We can’t do that again,” Pershing said.
Instead, administrators plan to make selective cuts to certain programs while “protecting core values like basic academic programs,” he said. “There is no other way.
“We don’t know how much higher education will be asked to cut,” Pershing said. “We hope we don’t have to take more than our fair share.”
Based on the U’s portion of the state budget pie, Pershing said a fair portion of the $157 million is anything up to $9 million.
“Right now, we don’t know what will happen. There are a lot of ‘could-bes,’ but everything is out on the table and will be until mid- summer,” said Paul Brinkman, associate vice president for budget and planning.