Eastern will likely start next fiscal year with less money than it was allocated this fiscal year, placing the university in a very tight financial situation after a year of state budget callbacks.

The Illinois Board of Higher Education will present its plan for distribution of the state university budgets at its meeting Tuesday at Illinois State University in Normal.

Eastern started this current fiscal year with $81.9 in its operating budget; however, the budget fell to $79.6 million after the state called back $624,000 in appropriations and passed on the university’s $1.7 million group insurance bill.

The money for the callback came from one-time savings in deferred maintenance, utilities and holding vacated positions open, administrators have said.

The budget callbacks and maneuvers were in response to the state’s dwindling tax revenues during a nationwide recession. Those budget issues are now carrying over into the next fiscal year, hitting state funded institutions hard.

For this coming fiscal year, which begins July 1, the IBHE recommends Eastern receive an $83 million allocation, but with the $1.7 million group insurance tab added, Eastern’s spending cap is set at $81.3 million.

“The way that I see it, by the time we cover group insurance, our real spending authority is down $633,000 from our fiscal year 2002 beginning budget,” Kim Furumo, director of the Budget Office, said.

In addition, most of the $3.8 million increase the IBHE recommends is expected to come from income funds, based on revenue from tuition and student fees. In total, less than $1 million of the increase is in actual state allocated money.

The main increase in income is supposed to be the result of a tuition increase, a projected enrollment increase and seniors and graduate students switching to per-credit hour tuition, Furumo has said.

Given the financial hardships institutions like Eastern will face, the IBHE is making some budget modifications to give them more freedom with the allocations they have.

Instead of dividing the funds among individual line items, the IBHE has just asked universities to use the money to “enhance academic base support, maintain quality programs, and for unavoidable cost increases” like rising utilities expenses.

This new action may be intended to give universities flexibility in making tough budgeting decisions, Furumo said.

However, that flexibility comes with little actual money.

“(The proposed budget) only leaves a little over $2 million to cover unavoidable increases,” Furumo said.

Any ongoing expense from faculty contracts to elevator maintenance falls into the category of unavoidable cost increases.

While Eastern’s operating budget has been hit hard, capital renewal and capital project funds, like those for the Doudna Fine Arts Center expansion and renovation, are still intact, Furumo said.

The IBHE still has to approve the recommended numbers, a process that would more likely take some money away from Eastern than give it more, said Jeff Cooley, vice president for business affairs.

“We hope it will go through at this level and not get reduced,” Cooley said, predicting that the figures would likely stay the same.

In addition, the state budget still has to make its way through the General Assembly, a process that could result in even less money for higher education and for Eastern, Furumo said.

“This would be probably the highest amount we could get,” Furumo said. “I expect for it to go down further, but I’m hoping it stays the same.”

The administration must now go back to the drawing board to figure out how they will deal with the lack of an increase, since this year’s cuts were handled with one-time savings.

Other state universities have already decided tuition increases will be needed to keep the institutions out of the red.

Walter Wendler, chancellor at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, told the Associate Press he proposed raising SIU’s tuition by 20 percent next fall and 15 percent for the next three years to combat the funding cuts. The University of Illinois will raise tuition by 10 percent at its campuses in Springfield, Urbana and Chicago. However, Eastern administrators have maintained that raising tuition will be used only as a last resort.

Eastern administrators have already testified before the Illinois House about the impact of the cuts and will do so before the Senate April 8.