Spring Break
Student and faculty senates join to grapple with budget woes
University vice president Randhawa says it will be necessary to cut 200 or more full-time employees
Kate Welter
Issue date: 5/1/09 Section: News
|
The President's Advisory Council on Budget and Strategic Priorities stated that the three specific goals of the meeting were to discuss the context on what is known on the current budget situation, highlight how OSU as an institution would deal with the budget and to open up the presentation to a question and answer session.
This was the first time that both the ASOSU Senate and Faculty Senate had ever before joined together to actively discuss campus-wide issues.
"This is a unique situation where we have student and Faculty Senate together at the same time. It's an opportunity to come together and see what changes need to be made as a community. It cannot be done without a lot of different input involved," said Ryan Mann, current ASOSU president, who also serves on the advisory budget board.
The session began with a PowerPoint presentation by Provost and Executive Vice President of the university Sabah Randhawa, which addressed a wide variety of upcoming budget cuts.
OSU is facing a 10 to 30 percent reduction in the education and general budget for the 2009-2011 school years. The OSU-Cascades campus is also looking at a more than 30 percent reduction in their budget. On top of that, OSU tuition for an undergraduate in-state resident will see a 9.6 to 20.6 percent increase, while holding back 10 to 30 percent of financial aid.
In comparison with the other Pac-10 schools, OSU will have the second highest tuition increase if it does in fact up its tuition by 20.6 percent, being right behind the University of Oregon, who is looking at a maximum 23.6 percent tuition jump.
In order to balance out the budget, $30 million will come from an increased tuition, as well as $25 million one-time cuts from other revenues and $20 million from permanent cuts.
Randhawa stressed in the PowerPoint that the budget could not be balanced without permanently eliminating 200 to 300 full time employees. Across-the-board cuts are deemed to be past the point of being productive or in OSU's best interest.
Note: writers will not reply to comments.
Be the first to comment on this story
Comments by registered users are approved by default.