Eastern’s operating budget for this year wound up ahead of last year’s early predictions and recommendations made by the Illinois Board of Higher Education, yet “unavoidable cost increases” have led to a $2.2 million shortfall.

Former budget director, Kim Furumo, predicted an increase of about $2.9 million in tuition revenue in fiscal year 2003, allowing for a rise in enrollment by 50.

As of last March, Furumo said Eastern’s preliminary spending authority would be about $81.3 million for this year.

In April, the Illinois Board of Higher Education recommended an operating budget of about $83.1 million, although Furumo said employees’ health insurance would take out about $1.7 million from the budget.

This year’s operating budget, as of August 31, showed total funds available at nearly $84 million.

The fiscal year 2003 base budget commitments equaled $81.2 million.

This includes a $417, 908 “carryover” from last year’s operating budget.

Jeff Cooley, vice president of business affairs, said the “carryover” is general revenue money saved from last year’s budget.

“If you know you’re going to have a budget shortfall, don’t spend (money),” Cooley said.

Charles Delman, professor of mathematics and chief negotiator for Eastern’s University Professionals of Illinois, said the $417,908 was not unspent funds.

Delman believes money was allocated in last year’s budget and has been carried over to pay for fiscal year 2002 expenses.

The budget listed over $2.3 million in revenue from this year’s enrollment jump coupled with an 8.5 percent tuition increase.

Cooley said the university received around $32 million from tuition and fees, which he described as a combination of an enrollment increase and an additional 3.5 percent tuition increase on top of a standard 5 percent increase approved before the major budget decline.

Delman calculated the university received over $5 million in new income revenues from tuition.

However, the “unavoidable cost increases” listed in the operating budget topped off at almost $5 million.

The largest cost increase was $1.7 million for group insurance for employees, which was Eastern’s share of the $45 million Gov. George Ryan requested last year from all public institutions of higher education for health insurance, Cooley said.

This expense, along with other expenses listed on the budget, was the same as last year, Delman said, and it should be in last year’s base budget.

“To say it’s a new expense is deceptive,” Delman said.

Hiring additional faculty for the enrollment increase cost $389,400, which Delman said is too low considering the money brought in from the tuition revenue increase.

He said it doesn’t make sense that only a tiny portion of tuition fees are being used to hire faculty to accommodate all the new students.

“If academics were a priority, surely we could have taken out more funds to hire professors,” Delman said.

The “unavoidable cost increases” for technology were $400,000, based on fiscal year 2002’s funding base.

Cooley said $800,000 was budgeted for technology last year, and $400,000 was the base increase for this year.

But Delman said the money allocated for last year’s budget was not listed as an unavoidable cost, and much of that money was not spent.

The fine arts relocation costs, stemming from construction on the Doudna Fine Arts Center, were cited at $300,000, and the Student Information System set the budget back $250,000. This increase on the budget was followed by $800,000 for salary annualization.

The Illinois Century Network, the state’s Internet pipeline, was listed as $102, 800, and student scholarships totaled at $100,000.

The lowest cost increase was $40,000 for admissions and application processing.

All of these “unavoidable” expenses in the operating budget were legitimate, Cooley said, but Delman disagreed.

“What bothers me is that none of these choices on how to spend money are under scrutiny,” Delman said.

He said the administration didn’t explain why certain expenses were made-it just revealed the shortfall.

“This shortfall doesn’t mean we’re bankrupt,” Delman said. “But it means they’re going to have to take money from other places.”