Since the last fiscal year Southeastern’s state funds have been cut nearly $7.7 million, a difference of nearly 20 percent. The reduction in state funds is the outcome of the last legislative session which cut about $66 million from higher education this year.
“It’s a different model of how they want schools to function,” said Faculty Senate President Dr. James Kirylo. “It’s largely on the backs of students.”
However, just as it appears that higher education as a whole has taken a major blow during the current fiscal year, that notion is proving to be false.
Recent reports determine that the Louisiana State University System approved a four percent across-the-board pay raise for many employees. This is because legislators dedicated approximately $40 million to the four state university systems: Louisiana Community and Technical College System, Southern University System, the LSU system and University of Louisiana System.
Each university system received roughly $10 million from the allocated funds.
The ULS, which Southeastern is part of, is the largest; therefore each university within the system only received an additional $1.1 million in state assigned funds for the fiscal year.
“What happened was that some systems got more than others because we have one of the largest systems so we have nine schools serving over 100,000 students,” said Kirylo. “By the time that money was allocated, Southeastern got $1.1 million. In the big scheme of things, we couldn’t do a whole lot with that. That was just something the legislature did.”
This, according to Crain, was an “oversimplification” of funds by the state legislature, as he told the Faculty Senate at its last meeting.
“Dr. Crain wanted to explain how we wound up getting only $1.1 million from the money allocated,” said Kirylo.
Crain told the Faculty Senate that he was neither endorsing the measure nor criticizing it, rather “stating the facts.”
Kirylo, though, said Crain believes further cuts to higher education will begin to phase out in the upcoming fiscal years.
“Dr. Crain does seem to think that there is a shift in the attitude of the legislature, that this is not sustainable anymore, that universities have taken enough of these cuts,” said Kirylo.
But not all numbers are down for the university.
Statutory dedicated funds have increased from approximately $2 million to $14.3 million, which offsets a large portion of the reduction of nearly $20 million in the general fund direct monies from the state. These funds go towards items such as grants and cannot be used for general expenditures.
Also, expenditures on instruction, research, other compensation, related benefits, operating services, supplies, interagency transfers and general acquisitions have all increased since the last fiscal year.
Altogether, the university’s over-collections fund is budgeted at $12.3 million for the fiscal year. These are nonrecurring funds collected by the state and appropriated for use by higher education.
Due to the GRAD Act, which ensures that state universities can increase tuition by 10 percent based on performance measures and graduation rates, self-generated funds are budgeted at $75.8 million. This amount increased 8.75 percent or $6 million since the last fiscal year.
Some in academia question whether the university can withstand the cuts put on them directly by the state.
“I don’t think the new model is sustainable. I know that you have the Taylor Opportunity Program for Students, which is a good thing, but not everybody has TOPS,” said Kirylo. “The tuition is still relatively manageable for the sense of the market because Southeastern’s tuition has historically been lower than other universities. The problem is that the tuition increases have been just too fast. And consequently, there’s been some enrollment impact.”
Furthermore, the university expects to see less total revenue coming in this fiscal year. In the previous year, the university raked in about $108 million in revenue, but this year, budget experts plan to take in about $107 million, an approximate $1.6 million difference.
One good sign for the university is the total amount of expenditures, which has actually decreased over the last year. For fiscal year 2013-2014, the university budgeted expenses at $107.4 million, a $1.6 million or 1.5 percent decrease.
Those expenses could become even lower as the budget is finalized at the end of the fiscal year. This is apparent in the last university budget where $109 million was proposed to be spent and only $108 million of that amount actually was.
In his most recent campus update, President John L. Crain said personnel-related budget changes “will impact a total of 59 positions either through elimination, reduction to part-time status or transfer to non-operating funding sources.”
“These actions include the elimination of 15 occupied staff positions, nine classified and six unclassified,” Crain stated. “Budget actions also resulted in the elimination of 13 vacant positions, including six classified and seven unclassified. In addition, 28 staff positions were moved to non-operating funding sources. These positions reflect a combination of vacant and filled, as well as classified and unclassified positions.”
This, according to Crain, will save a total of $2.7 million in the operation fund for salaries and benefits.
“It’s pretty sad. We’re that desperate that we couldn’t round up $2.7 million, I mean in the big picture of all the money we’re talking about, I guess it’s that bad,” said Kirylo.
With cuts taking place, programs and construction projects throughout campus continue, which Kirylo said adds to the public perception that all is well.
“The public perception will say ‘What are they complaining about?'” said Kirylo. “Well we do know that these are monies that have come from different places and have been earmarked. All of this probably isn’t being explained that well for the public.”
According to Kirylo, the Faculty Senate Budget Committee will be reviewing the budget in the coming weeks and will discuss it at its next meeting.