Eastern has been bracing itself for a financial impact.

Gov. Pat Quinn proposed across the board education funding cuts for fiscal year 2011.

During his March 10 budget address, Quinn proposed a 6.2 percent cut to all Illinois education spending. Under this proposal, Eastern stands to lose more than $3 million in government funding.

The final budget has to be negotiated and approved by the Illinois House and Senate.

Eastern has already been preparing itself for potential cuts, said Treasurer Paul McCann.

“I think it’s a pretty good chance that we will get a decrease in 2011, but it’s not unexpected,” McCann said. “We’ve been kind of planning for this as we go along.”

President Bill Perry instituted a freeze on hiring and equipment purchases in place on Jan. 7 as a means to cut costs as the university waits to receive $33.1 million of its $50.6 million appropriations.

“Those things will likely carry forward to next year, as the plan now stands, to limit the exposure,” McCann said. “The other side of that is that we’re trying to keep the potential tuition increase to a minimal level for next year.”

The Board of Trustees sets fall tuition levels in the spring. Some years, tuition rates are set as early as the April board meeting, but McCann expects the university to wait until June’s meeting this year.

“It just works out better for us,” McCann said. “We know better where the legislature and the governor are going to be on the appropriated budget for next year.”

McCann said he does not know why Quinn proposed deep cuts to education, but suspects it might be a way for Quinn to gain support for a tax increase.

“That’s really where the governor’s coming from, he wants a tax increase,” McCann said. “He basically came out and threatened all of education, whether higher ed, secondary, everything, with an across the board cut if he didn’t get a tax increase. In effect, then, the tax increase would go to covering the decreases in education.”

Quinn’s proposal is just one in a string of hotly contested ideas in the state Legislature for handling the budget crisis.

“It sounded politically like there had been a lot of disagreement with what the governor had proposed,” McCann said. “So I don’t know what that means from the standpoint of negotiating a settlement in the Legislature.”

Sarah Ruholl can be reached at 581-7942 or at [email protected].