The rising cost of employee benefits has prompted UA administrators to, for the third time in four years, ask colleges to cut their budgets.
The 2.06 percent cuts that President Peter Likins is asking each department to make will total $6.2 million, half of the budget deficit. The other half will be paid for by the university's marginal revenue increases from increased enrollment and tuition.
The state Legislature gave the UA $4.3 million to retain key personnel, but failed to give money for the increased cost of health, dental, life and disability insurance, said Richard Roberts, budget director.
The cost of the statewide policy for health insurance has increased dramatically in recent years, Roberts said. Those covered by the policy have 5.4 percent of each paycheck retained, and that amount is ideally matched by the university to pay for insurance.
However, as insurance costs have risen, the percent taken out of employee paychecks has not increased, and it's statewide policy for the employer to pay the balance. For the university, that means a $12.4 million dollar cost.
Losing the most will be the administration and the Arizona Health Sciences Center, which will have to cut $1 million and $871,400, respectively, from their budgets.
The College of Science is being asked to cut $828,513, something its dean, Joaquin Ruiz, is concerned about.
"It's a very stressful situation because the department's budget has been cut continually for some time," Ruiz said. "Each time there are the personal tragedies of people getting laid off. And in science, we are more stressed for research money."
UA departments had to cut their budgets by 4 and 5.4 percent in fiscal years 2002 and 2003, respectively.
"The two previous reductions seriously undermined the confidence of the faculty," Roberts said, adding that faculty members may be wondering whether the state Legislature is committed to higher education.
"Clearly these (cuts) affect morale. That can be translated to retention and hiring," Ruiz said.
The cuts are also stalling the growth that many departments are trying to fund.
"It's just a very unfortunate time for us to get the tax cut (because) we've been addressing the statewide shortage of nurses," said College of Nursing dean Marjorie Isenberg. "We've increased our enrollment by 64 percent and we could admit more students, but with the budget cuts it will create problems because it will probably mean faculty positions that we won't be able to fill."
In the current economic climate, many state universities are going through tough cuts, Roberts said.
"When we go through a period like this, your long term goal is to make the reductions that are necessary in such a manner to make it so you can get back to your mission when the funds return," Roberts said. "The economy is getting better. We have reasonable hope that next year our needs will be met by the Legislature."
Although departments have until March to make the cuts, most are already trying to figure out a way to minimize the damage.
"We're looking at what our possibilities are. We've been looking at the various options," Ruiz said. "Whichever one we're going to do is going to be painful."
Ben Ristow, a creative writing graduate student and teaching assistant, said his concern would be the funding, or lack thereof, coming out of the department for his salary and health insurance.
"I worry about my own salary, my small stipend I get as a graduate student teaching English 101 and 102," Ristow said. "My concern would be how the English department is going to make that cut without cutting out the lowest on the totem pole, that being us as graduate assistants and teachers."
Nathan Tafoya contributed to this report.