While Governor Jindal approved the Louisiana’s Executive Budget July 1, many state agencies, including Southeastern, still have little or no idea of the funding they will receive for the fiscal year.
“Once the governor finalizes the budget, vetoes various provisions, etc., the State Budget Office must still notify agencies of the result,” said University President John L. Crain. “For higher education, that result goes to the Board of Regents, which allocates the funds to the [University of Louisiana] System via the formula. Once the Systems get their numbers, they will allocate the funds to specific institutions.”
Despite the current uncertainty of the university’s budget, new bills passed during the 2011 Legislative Session, such as the legislation known as GRAD Act 2.0 and the new “funding formula” mentioned by Crain, the administration has some idea of the funding the university may or may not get.
According to Crain, approved increases in tuition and fees, in combination with various budget solutions, have drastically softened the blow of the loss of $16 million in federal stimulus funds. The aforementioned tuition raises are a result of the LA GRAD Act. If certain criteria are met, the LA GRAD Act allows institutions to raise their tuition price by 10 percent each year without legislative approval until they meet the average tuition rate of their peer institutions.
According to Executive Director of Public and Government Affairs Erin Cowser, the GRAD Act 2.0 is basically an updated version of it predecessor and designed to “put more emphasis on student success parameters including graduation rates, completers and student retention.”
The new funding formula however, has the potential to financially harm Southeastern.
“This fiscal year will focus on providing more money for more expensive programs,” said Cowser. “In the past, the difference between high and low cost programs hasn’t been well defined. The formula has heightened awareness of that difference, but Southeastern will lose funds because we simply don’t have that many programs that are considered expensive by the formula.”
According to Vice President for Administration and Finance Stephen Smith, “the formula takes in account a number of factors. These include but are not limited to institutional type (Southeastern is considered a 4 year 3 institution), average regional salaries for faculty, mix of student credit hours taken by students (this includes courses by discipline and the level of the students-freshmen, sophomore, junior, etc), size of institutional facilities on campus, research activity, etc.” More detailed information on the formula can be found at www.ulsystem.net.
Though the university’s financial situation for the next fiscal year is unclear, Crain is confident that the budget will be released soon and that cuts to Southeastern’s budget will be miniscule.
“We hope, and anticipate, that our resources will be fairly close to what we had last year; not much additional reduction, if any,” said Crain. “We won’t know for sure, however, until we get the official numbers from Baton Rouge.”