Budget cuts will take toll on MSU

By Justin Harris and Kayla Habermehl (Last updated: 04/23/09 11:10pm)

Editor’s note: This story is the third in a three-part series on MSU’s budget pressures.

When Gov. Jennifer Granholm proposed a $9.1 million cut to MSU’s funding in February, MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon said there would be cutbacks. To compensate for the lack of state funding, she said it would take an almost 9 percent tuition increase or more than 700 faculty and staff layoffs.

Although she assured neither extreme would come to fruition, university officials have began to brace for cuts in next year’s academic budget. This year’s budget is $1.1 billion.

Provost Kim Wilcox instructed deans of the university’s 17 degree-granting colleges to prepare for a 10 percent cut during the next three years — 4 percent in 2009-10, 4 percent in 2010-11 and a final 2 percent in 2011-12. There is no solid figure for how much money this would save the university, but the cuts are meant to reflect anticipated changes in the economy.

“If you listen to any economist, any prognosticator, they’ll tell you we’re going to be cut about 10 percent over the next couple years,” Wilcox said. “Now, we could wait until the Legislature took some action or until the government made a mid-year cut and then try to be reactive to that, but we know we’re going to be reduced by 10 percent over the next two or three years.”

Although the state hasn’t approved its final budget, and isn’t required to until Oct. 1 when its fiscal year begins, MSU has started the process of finalizing its budget for the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Cutting back

As part of the budget process, every college is supposed to return 1 percent of its operating budget to the provost’s office to be reallocated throughout the university. Wilcox said this process will be especially important in the coming years when money is not abundant.

He said programs and colleges that continue to innovate and stay on the cutting edge will receive more of this allocation, and programs that aren’t keeping up with the pace of the university will be phased out.

Simon likened this process to managing an orchard. As funds become more limited, she said the university will have to focus on programs that are relevant to current times.

“You’ve got to continue to plant trees that bear fruit in the future or you end up not having an orchard when you’re finished,” she said. “At some point in time … you have to decide that some parts of the orchard, some types of fruit or trees, you can’t do. Not because you can’t do them well, but because you can’t invest in them in a way that they’re really going to do well in the future. Those are the toughest decisions.”

The first sign of academic cutbacks came in mid-February when the College of Music’s music therapy program was put on hold with the proposal of an admissions moratorium, causing an outcry from around the world.

Although students and faculty continue to protest the program’s apparent demise, Wilcox said similar moratoria and program cuts are likely during the next three years.

“I just can’t believe that over the next three years we won’t see more,” he said. “We will likely see some next year.”

Simon said students enrolled in programs that are discontinued still will be able to graduate in a reasonable time period.

No other program cuts have been announced, but Simon and Wilcox agree the cuts are a reality of the university’s future.

A crippling effect

Not all of the cuts are coming from within the university.

The MSU Extension and the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Stations, or MAES, both potentially face fatal funding cuts in the state budget.

The MSU Extension services are community outreach and educational branches of MSU.

MAES consists of facilities around Michigan that conduct natural science research.

Granholm recommended combining the budgets of the two entities, effectively cutting the budget of each by 50 percent, said Jeffrey Armstong, dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Last year, state funding for both programs was $64 million. Under the proposed plan, both would be expected to operate with a shared $32 million.

“Our college would disappear without those programs,” Armstrong said. “The vast majority of our department funding comes from the MSU Extension and Michigan Agricultural Experiment Stations, so the governor’s proposal to cut 50 percent of those programs would have eliminated our college. … A double-digit cut would be devastating.”

State money makes up about 80 percent of MAES’ budget, according to the MAES Web site.

The budgets for both organizations are being treated as part of the higher education budget, which is currently reviewed by the state Legislature.

Student effect

Although Simon said cuts to next year’s budget might not be as noticeable as cuts to the 2010-11 budget, there will be some changes students will notice this fall.

She said class sizes will be larger and course scheduling will have less flexibility than in the past.

Even though cuts aren’t visible yet, many students are fearful for what will happen in the future.

“I’m worried about the ability to provide exact assistance to the people that are trying to learn,” said Marie DeRegnaucourt, a deaf education senior. “In certain programs, people need the experience whereas others need more textual resources. I’m hoping we can get more of that.”

Faculty changes

For the 2008-09 MSU budget, staff and faculty salaries represented almost 70 percent of the university’s expenditures, costing about $647.6 million.

Because salaries make up a majority of the university’s spending, much of the cuts MSU officials are discussing are faculty and staff related.

Rather than considering layoffs for the coming year, Wilcox said many colleges are leaving vacant positions open and not hiring new faculty.

“So far, we’ve been pretty fortunate to avoid layoffs, but we’ve had to stop searches (for open positions),” said Marietta Baba, the dean of the College of Social Science. “It’s my eighth year of being a dean, and I’ve never had to stop searches. We had advertisements for faculty and we had to close them.”

In addition to full-time faculty position cuts, some colleges will reduce the number of graduate and undergraduate assistants.

“In a lab section where there might be a graduate teaching assistant and an undergrad helper, we may lose the extra help,” said R. James Kirkpatrick, dean of the College of Natural Science.

Simon said some faculty who work at the university have end dates for their MSU-related work. Many of these faculty will not be asked to come back, she said.

“The colleges and Vice President (for finance and operations Fred) Poston will take action to not renew those appointments,” she said. “If you’re one of those people who believe you have been fired or laid off, technically you have not been laid off. So there’s going to be a little bit of noise.”

Kirkpatrick said the 10 percent multiyear plan allows colleges to reduce faculty through retirement and attrition.

Karin Wurst, dean of the College of Arts and Letters, said layoffs will affect her college more significantly than others because it’s already operating on a tight budget.

“This college is running really lean anyway because we don’t have a lot of grant funding,” she said. “A lot of our budget is tied up in salaries, so there is really not much room to play. For us, budget cuts eat into teaching ability very quickly.”

Addition in a time of subtraction

Although Wilcox acknowledged many cuts will be made during the next three years, he said MSU cannot remain a world-class institution without continuing to move forward.

“If we stop innovating, we’re no longer a university,” he said.

Wilcox said colleges that show new initiatives and evolution will receive more of the reallocation money his office distributes every year.

Kirkpatrick said although every college must weigh the cost of adding and cutting programs, the 10 percent cut is severe.

“We’re going to be able to take a more thoughtful, more thought-out approach to where we build and things that we can stop doing,” he said. “These are real reductions. Ten percent is huge. It’s going to have a lot of effects (on) a lot of places around the university.”

Originally Published: 04/23/09 10:57pm