Ryan’s budget cuts hit Eastern for $100,000

The library and the facilities planning and management departments can expect to have tighter budgets because of Gov. George Ryan’s cut in Eastern’s fiscal year 2002 budget recommendations.

“It is simply a lack of an increase,” said Allen Lanham, dean of library services. Allen said the costs of books and subscriptions continue to increase, so given the same budget that they had last year, almost $1.3 million, the department will not be able to purchase the same amount as they did before.

“It either means fewer journal subscriptions or fewer new books and generally faculty members weigh in on the side of the journal subscriptions, so we will try to not cut the subscription budget,” Allen said.

The Governor’s recommendations cut $98,100 from the Illinois Board of Higher Education recommended increase of $4.5 million. The funds for the cut were taken directly from a proposed 3 percent increase for library acquisitions, totaling $37,800, and a 3 percent increase for utilities, totaling $60,300.

Carol Strode, acting director of facilities planning and management, did not return an e-mail or phone calls concerning the effects of the recommended utility budget increase cut.

Similar cuts were made in all public universities and community colleges in Illinois, which amounted to $3.5 million of Ryan’s cuts.

Despite the $98,100 recommended cut in increases by Ryan, Eastern is recommended for a 7 percent increase in state funding, the highest increase out of 12 public universities.

Lida Wall, interim vice president for academic affairs, said she is not sure if funds will be reallocated from other areas of Eastern’s budget to cover Ryan’s cuts.

“We will probably wait until the General Assembly meets and see what type of changes they make in budget,” Wall said in an e-mail.

The General Assembly is expected to finalize their own recommendations by the end of June.

Eastern was anticipating a $2.9 million budget shortfall based solely on the IBHE recommended increases.

As a result of that shortfall, the Academic Affairs office asked for each department to submit scenarios for action to be taken based on a percentage of the shortfall that may materialize.

“We have asked colleges and departments to provide scenarios relative to cuts ranging from 100 percent, 2/3 and 1/3 of the amount requested,” Wall said. “The deeper the cuts in the IBHE recommendations, the more likely we will move from the 1/3 scenario to the 100 percent scenario.”

Wall said it was still too early to tell how much of the shortfall will materialize.

The $2.9 million budget shortfall was based on several budget shortcomings, the two largest of which are the annualization of faculty salary agreements, $900,000, and a $800,000 network cost deficit.