SIU plans for cuts up to 18%

I've been told that deans at SIUC have been asked to make plans for cuts of up to 18%. I don't know the background for this stage in the planning process. My initial impression is this: so much for the onion.

Cuts to college budgets aren't to "outer layers of the onion", in Dunn's analogy from last summer. They aren't to regional services, student service, athletics, etc. Large cuts to college budgets would mean major cuts in instructional staff. Major cuts to instructional staff, at least if made quickly and legally, would have to be to NTT faculty (GA budgets have already been allocated, at least at a large extent, with some cuts included). Such cuts would be distributed not based on the results of some program prioritization scheme, but simply on which programs have lots of NTT faculty. Those programs face de facto elimination. So we would not just be lopping off selected parts of the university, but eliminating academic programs that happen to be NTT heavy.*

The university's lack of funds isn't an Anthony Hall crisis but a Springfield crisis. But if the administration doesn't do all it can to protect academics, and makes academic cuts in a  ham-handed manner, it will add an Anthony Hall crisis to the mix. We can't afford that.

More context and speculation after the break. I don't know all the details of administrative planning, of course, so my worries may prove unfounded. That would be a happy result. In the meantime, the worries can be taken as my sage advice on how to avoid making this an Anthony Hall crisis.

State news update

IHBE leaders warn that community colleges certainly can't front MAP grants, universities probably can't. The DE has coverage of our students' worries on this front here. Even if public universities, including SIU, somehow manage to continue funding MAP grants, the loss of MAP grants at community colleges would mean a massive loss in college access, including for many students who would otherwise eventually transfer to SIU.

GOP floats new bill to fund social services--not universities. The Republicans argue this bill would pay for such spending, unlike previous democratic efforts to fund social services and higher education. One way their bill pays for social services (and not for public universities) is to require public universities to pick up pension payments for anyone making over $180,000. I.e., it pays for social services, in part, by taking money from universities. Social services need funding, and I'm not terribly sympathetic to the financial plight of folks making more than $180,000, but universities cannot simply renege on promised pension benefits to them. The rest comes from the mysterious "special funds". They are apparently a real problem (one beyond my ken), but "sweeping" them has consequences, at least in one case where taking gasoline taxes meant to pay for leaking gasoline tanks. Ultimately the state needs a real budget: the belief that we can solve state budget problems via special funds is the state-level equivalent of saying we can solve university funding problems by cutting administrative bloat.

Rauner calls for putting partisan differences aside, attacks other side.  Our governor penned a letter to the State Journal-Register (Springfield) that started off with happy talk about putting people first and then quickly became a pitch for his own short-term proposals to fund universities and social services. My analysis of those proposals is here. The same day he called for negotiations he gave a speech at a GOP Lincoln Day dinner that the local paper characterized as a call for "Staying the Course".

Friday updates

1. Financial exigency. I emailed President Dunn a week ago but have received no response as to what he meant when he said the board might need to declare a financial emergency. As far as I can gather, no one else on the Carbondale campus knows what Dunn meant, either. There are concerns about a short-term liquidity problem as well as the long-term problem if our state funding is cut on the order of 20%, as the Governor has proposed (particularly when that cut is compounded by lower enrollment thanks to the state's failure to fund universities this year). The short-term liquidity problem may arise over the summer; Dunn may have been alluding to Board action required to deal with that. Furloughs of staff on contract over the summer would seem to be one possibility.

Update on turning in the keys and the rally at Chicago (whence the picture below) after the break.

UIC supporters join Chicago teachers at rally, April 1 2016.

Turning in keys at Chicago State

All staff and students at Chicago State University are being asked to turn in their keys. The move is designed to safeguard state property after the university runs out of money on May 1.

Unlike more financially stable public schools such as the University of Illinois or Southern Illinois University, about one-third of Chicago State's budget — about $36 million — comes from the state, and the school doesn't have a large enough endowment or cash reserves to keep it afloat.

If you thought the link on "Southern Illinois University" might bring a silver lining, think again: it's basically a dead end. I don't know where the Tribune got the 1/3 figure for state funding for CSU.  At SIUC, more like 1/2 of our unrestricted funds come from the state. Though lots of restrictions have  been lifted this past year to keep us afloat, we won't be able to survive much longer by robbing other accounts. The University of Illinois can make it through another academic year without state funding, I've been told; SIUC can't, at least not without massive cuts, including numerous layoffs.

Unless something changes, this is where we're all headed. Enjoy your key while you can. The state obviously has a high interest in preserving empty offices and classrooms. Perhaps they can recoup something by selling the desks.

Squeeze the beast

A brief story from Capitol Fax on the governor's "solution" to the higher education crisis. Rich Miller's link back there via the lovely phrase squeeze the beast gives further help on what passes for a positive agenda for public universities among the state GOP leadership. It's basically the same garbage I tried to refute in this post about the Illinois Policy Institute report excerpted in the DE the other day.

One little point here for my friend Tony Williams, who may be the only one reading this in any event: calls to cut administrative costs may be justified in their own terms but also play into the hands of the GOP. If we cut every unnecessary deanlet, trimmed every bloated administrative salary, and eliminated every unnecessary layer of bureaucracy, the savings would be a pittance compared to the savage cuts the governor is proposing—much less the 100% cut he's imposed this year. So I'm starting to think that our administration's defensiveness on this issue may not only be self-interested (though it certainly is that) but perhaps also smart politics on behalf of public education.

Dunn hints at financial exigency

The Southern has posted its story on the BOT meeting ending today (Thursday). The headline is the 3% tuition hike. But some language in the Southern article suggests the scariest phrase for any T/TT faculty member: financial exigency. That means layoffs of T/TT faculty. Of course many others on campus are already facing possible layoffs, but Dunn's statement could be the harbinger of even more widespread pain for staff and deeper cuts to our core academic mission. The FA went on strike, after all, to protect tenure and prevent the administration from laying off tenured faculty absent a dire crisis ("financial exigency").

Here's the vital language from the story, especially in the paraphrase of President Dunn. 

“While we haven’t started flipping all of the switches for each one of those listed cuts, … everything’s kind of put in place to move with those,” he said.

In a more dire, “perfect storm” scenario, in which no spending bill is approved for the current fiscal year and no budget is in place for FY17 by mid- to late-June, Dunn said the board may have to consider declaring a fiscal emergency in order to make more significant changes.

EIU Faculty Approve Pay Deferral; Administration Agrees

EIU faculty have voted to accept a union proposal to defer a substantial chunk of their last paychecks of this year to help EIU deal with the budget crisis. The EIU administration has agreed to abide by the terms of the plan, which will require that faculty be paid back out of 50% of any state funding (including for MAP grants) for FY 2016 or FY 2017.

Faculty earlier voted to reject a plan that made repayment contingent on standard state funding (minus MAP grants) for FY 2016. The approved plan also distributes cuts progressively, with higher paid faculty taking a larger cut. The EIU administration initially expressed some concerns about the new proposal, but seems to have decided to accept it once the faculty had done so.

The deal amounts to some $2 million.