Low enrollment has departments cutting budgets

In a memo last semester, Provost Paul Sypherd told departments to delay buying equipment and hiring new faculty, among other cost saving measures.

The memo stated that the shortfall for the next fiscal year is expected to be between $7 million and $8 million.

Eugene Sander, vice provost of the College of Agriculture, said his college had to cut 1 percent of their $405,500 budget to meet the shortfall.

"We've had to delay faculty hiring in animal sciences, nutritional sciences and veterinary sciences," Sander said.

He also said he had to reduce all operational budgets by 10 percent.

"It's not been much fun," Sander said.

However, Richard Roberts, chief budget officer for the UA, said there is a debt service of $1.7 million for the planned Integrated Instructional Facility in the budget.

Sander said he felt building projects, like the IIF, were important. He said he did not have enough data to say whether such a project could be scrapped to save departments from cost-cutting measures.

"In my opinion that (the IIF) is an absolutely needed building. The question is when," he said.

Sander also said it is important to restore any items eliminated from departmental budgets as soon as possible.

Dennis Cory, head of the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics, said they have delayed filling three empty faculty slots.

"It has made it difficult to cover all our classes. We are understaffed," Cory said. "We have to scramble a bit to cover the courses."

Cory said he was unsure how his department could handle further cuts, and he envisioned entire programs being eliminated if the shortfall continues.

Chuck Tatum, dean of the College of Humanities, said he tried to spread the cuts out over the entire department to avoid heavily impacting one area.

"We've had to postpone purchases of capital items like photocopy machines that are ancient. We've had to curtail faculty travel, and the college closed down a deans discretionary fund," Tatum said.

He said the discretionary fund financed graduate and undergraduate student travel, speakers and other special purposes.

"What I tried to do was protect the instructional program from any cuts," he said. He added that there were virtually no cuts to the instructional program this year.

Tatum said a cut next year would affect the college's ability to meet its instructional responsibilities.

John Taylor, dean of the College of Education, said he thinks the shortfall is larger than the estimated $1.8 million figure. He said inflation, among other things, has made the figure swell.

"We have been in bad shape for a long time. We have had no increase in our operational budget for the last five years," he said.

Taylor said additional cuts will come about this year that will hurt the department.

He said he would favor the University of Arizona finding ways to influence the Legislature and the governor to increase funding.

"It would demonstrate how much they really value the education we are giving our students," Taylor said.

Richard Eribes, dean of the College of Architecture, said, "Our ability to offer some courses has been handicapped."

Eribes said plans to connect students and faculty in his college to the Internet have been curtailed because of the shortfall.

"The real numbers are that we have $60,000 in equipment that was not able to be purchased. That affects strategic planning for any new initiatives," he said.

Eribes said the cuts have resulted in elimination of eight or nine sections within the college.

"Our college is maxed out on teaching load," he said.

Eribes said he did not know if the proposed IIF building could be tabled to provide money to departments struggling under the cuts.

"I would favor increased scrutiny for new buildings," he said.

Roberts said there is no way to transfer funds from the IIF project to departments facing cuts.

"Once you've taken out a loan and bought a house you can't decide not to pay the mortgage," he said.

Roberts estimated $650,000 has already been spent on planning for the new facility and that bonds for the project cannot be issued until plans are completed. He said plans for IIF are expected to be completed within eight to 10 weeks.

The bottom line is that enrollment needs to increase to prevent future cuts, Roberts said.

Margi Stevenson, director of admissions, said there are many new plans in the works to increase enrollment.

"We are doing new things on an almost daily basis," said Stevenson, who cited an instant admission program to qualified local high school students and letters and phone calls to prospective students, among other programs.

"We can fix part of it (the enrollment decrease) but we can't fix the whole thing - the campus has to work together towards that goal," she said.