The UI, facing a $130 million state budget cut over two years, is “on the brink” and has exhausted all its fiscal flexibility, says UI President James J. Stukel.
In recent testimony to the Illinois Senate appropriations committee the president both pledged shared sacrifice and strict accountability and warned against a loss of quality.
“As you know, the economy has not recovered, so fiscal year 2004 will be another difficult budget year for state agencies and higher education,” he told the senators.
“We understand that this is an extraordinary budget crisis and the university will do its part to help you and the governor address it. However, we have no remaining financial flexibility at the university. Our enrollments are at record levels with nearly 71,000 students enrolled this spring semester. We simply cannot maintain educational quality while trying to serve these numbers of students with continuing reductions in resources.”
After outlining achievements – faculty and student awards at the Chicago and Urbana-Champaign campuses and the Springfield campus’s leadership in online learning – the president laid out the impact of the FY 02 and FY 03 budget cuts on the university and continued uncertainty about the FY 04 budget.
“Although we are all proud of the extraordinary accomplishments of the students and faculty of the university, I must also be frank with you about the future,” he said. “The cumulative effect of the cost increases, budget reductions and rescissions in FY 02 and FY 03 has eroded the university’s resource base by more than $130 million and has placed the institution on the brink.”
He noted that a recent independent study ranks the Urbana-Champaign campus 18th of 22 in its peer group for total resources for teaching, research and service, less than half what is available to the University of Michigan, and less than 60 percent of what is available to the top eight peers, including UCLA, UC-Berkeley and Wisconsin. UIC and UIS are in similar situations with their peer schools – and competition.
The president also pledged more progress in reducing administrative overhead and said the UI Board of Trustees is deeply involved in working with the university on such key issues as resource management, administrative reorganization and tuition and financial aid policies. But there is a limit to how much savings can be wrung from administration alone.
“Although we are already among the most efficiently run universities in the Big Ten and the Association of American Universities, we will reduce our administrative overhead even further,” he said. “Currently we spend only 4.9 percent on administration. Even larger savings here, assuming they are possible, will not solve the university’s budget crisis.”
Key dates in Illinois General Assembly
- March 20: House appropriations hearing for higher education
(non-budget) - April 4: Deadline for third (final) reading in the Illinois House and Senate
- April 8: House higher education appropriations committee
- April 9: Gov. Rod Blagojevich delivers his first state budget message and releases the budget document, with recommendations for higher education.
- April-May: Additional House and Senate hearings expected
- May 23: Scheduled adjournment.
- July 1: New state fiscal year begins.
