The Campus Budget Advisory Task Force was commissioned June 29 and calls on faculty and staff members and students to help develop long-term strategies to address the impact of to-be-determined cuts in state funding. (Committee members below.)
Initiated by the provost and chancellor, the task force is being asked to act as an advisory board for campus as it considers how to maximize resources while maintaining excellence amid the changing fiscal environment of higher education.
“Every day, our faculty and staff address the grand challenges facing society by engaging in innovative, creative, collaborative and groundbreaking research,” said Ilesanmi Adesida, the vice chancellor for academic affairs and provost. “We must ensure that we are laying the groundwork to sustain the fiscal resources to fuel these activities.”
The task force, whose membership was selected with recommendations from the Urbana Senate and the Council of Deans, will review recommendations submitted by campus units, standing budget committees, faculty and staff members, and students. It will also propose activities and units for further budgetary review and assess the impact of proposed cost-reduction strategies, revenue enhancement ideas and other strategic initiatives.
Actionable recommendations from the task force, chaired by Matt Ando, a professor of mathematics, will be vetted through the Council of Deans and the Senate.
“We have charged this task force with helping us to create a more comprehensive, more integrated and clearer understanding of how we can develop longer-term priorities and plans that are faithful to our core mission and strategic goals,” Adesida said. “We want to ensure that we never lose sight of our strategic goal, which is being the pre-eminent public university with a land-grant mission and global impact.”
Adesida said details on the task force’s work and progress are available online.
He said the task force would leave no stone unturned as the campus identifies the near-term and long-term actions necessary to ensure our strategic goals are realized.
“Everything is on the table,” he said.
The task force is being formed against the backdrop of the state of Illinois’ shaky financial picture, which regularly leaves university financial planners uncertain of the size and timing of the annual university appropriation.
New Gov. Bruce Rauner’s initial budget proposal this year asked for a 31.5 percent cut to state higher education – a move that some have estimated could cost the campus more than $100 million – and legislators already have rescinded about $15 million given to the U. of I. through last year’s appropriation.
There are further fears that a budget impasse in Springfield would negatively affect several state-funded programs if legislators still haven’t passed a budget by the end of the fiscal year.
U. of I. President Timothy L. Killeen has promised that employee paychecks will still be issued even if the state has not announced a budget by the end of the fiscal year.
And he said he is hopeful legislators will offer the university a consistent multiyear budget framework to make planning for the future easier and lessen the impact on students and faculty and staff members.
“People need to be able to plan their lives and have some expectation of stability,” he said at the June Senate Executive Committee meeting. “It’s not just about cutting our budgets, but optimizing them and then performing.”
CAMPUS BUDGET ADVISORY TASK FORCE
- Matt Ando, chair (head and professor, mathematics)
- Fouad Abd El Khalick (professor, curriculum and instruction)
- Andrew Alleyne (professor, mechanical science and engineering)
- Anne Barger (professor, pathobiology)
- Clare Crowston (professor, history)
- Paul Ellinger (head and professor, agricultural and consumer economics)
- Margareth Etienne (professor, law)
- John Lockmiller (executive assistant dean, College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences)
- Melanie Loots (executive vice chancellor for research, OVCR)
- Nolan Miller (professor, finance)
- Silvina Montrul (professor, Spanish)
- Kim Shinew (professor, recreation, sport and tourism)
- Linda Smith (professor, library and information science)
- Valleri Robinson (professor, theatre)
- Mitch Dickey (student)
