Administrators say a $2.2 million operating budget shortfall is the result of having more expenses than last year.

These expenses include a bill for employee insurance; costs for maintaining the Illinois Century network, an Internet pipeline; and salary annualization for faculty, said Jill Nilsen, vice president for external relations.

Jeff Cooley, vice president for business affairs, said unavoidable cost increases, such as property insurance rates, were a significant part of the budget shortfall. Property insurance rates went up almost $300,000 since last year.

Nilsen said these expenses were not known when the budget was put together last year.

“Our university is like any organization that has so much income, and this year expenses exceeded income,” Nilsen said. “Even though we have the largest freshman class in history, they came in at the same time we had new expenses.”

This situation is similar to last year, when Eastern was forced to give back $2.3 million to the state.

To deal with that setback, the administration sliced reserve accounts, stalled deferred maintenance, cut back on utility spending and left unfilled positions open. Of last year’s callback, $1.7 million covered the employee insurance bill that universities previously were not responsible for.

Cooley said internal reallocations covered some of the budget needs last year, and they need to happen again this year.

A mild winter and fewer retirements also helped cover shortfalls last year, but Cooley said it was too early to predict if the university can count on those factors in the current budget crunch.

“Whether we’re better off or worse off than last year is a moot point,” Cooley said. “We need to come up with the same amount of money.”

With the current shortfall, each vice president has been asked to look at his or her budget and come up with a plan to provide money for the deficit.

These plans might include keeping positions unfilled or not finishing maintenance projects, Nilsen said.

There’s always the possibility the state will call back funds again, and Nilsen is not ruling this out.

“Last year, we were asked to give back $2.3 million, and we went into the year not knowing it,” she said. “It would be prudent for our institution to look at a possible mid-year recision.”

Nilsen said budget cuts have the potential to impact academic programs, but the university will try hard not to let that happen.

“There’s not a lot of extras in our budget,” Nilsen said. “But I think Eastern has always been very effective at using the money available to provide the best education possible for students.”