The Council on University Planning and Budget heard ideas on how Eastern would go about paying back a 2.25 percent cut to fiscal year 2015 funds from the state of Illinois.

The cuts would come from the state appropriated funds handed out statewide for the current fiscal year, meaning Illinois universities would have to pay back some of the funds already given to them by the state.

David Emmerich, the CUPB chairman, said the discussion during Friday’s meeting was to review options to go about paying back 2.25 percent of state appropriated funds.

“Not all of the university’s money comes from the same source,” Emmerich said. “Some of that money comes from the state.”

Emmerich said the state had provided Eastern with roughly $4.4 million in appropriated funds, and the state has requested nearly $1 million to be returned.

The 2.25 percent cut totals out to roughly $989,100.

President Bill Perry asked the council members their advice about the reduction to the 2015 fiscal budget.

“There’s still some wrangling going over the 2015 budget because some of the cuts that have been made after the 2.25 percent cut in grants,” Perry said.

Perry also said some of the cuts have created a lot of political push back in Springfield.

Paul McCann, the interim vice president for business affairs, presented different options Eastern could take to go about paying back the 2.25 percent to the state.

McCann said during the meeting, on top of the $989,100, Eastern also has to pay back $79,000, which was from telecommunication expenses.

“We were notified that on top of the 2.25 (percent), we’ve got that $79,000 still sitting out there,” McCann said. “It’s roughly a million plus $79,000 that we have to come up with now.”

McCann said the money from telecommunication is already handled, but it is not just the $989,100 Eastern is trying to find the funds for.

“The options are some thoughts we had on how we might be able to solve the $989,100,” McCann said. “We have the ability to transfer about half a million dollars of projects within the deferred maintenance area over to campus improvements.”

McCann said the projects being transferred fall within the area of campus improvement and that is why they can be moved over.

McCann said one option could be moving some of the expenses of continuing education. He also said there were two additional options that could be used.

“One of them is move some of the moneys that we’ve been able to accumulate in the equivalent reserve and use some of those dollars,” McCann said. “The final thing would be using some of our reserves, say within the telecomm, to cover some of the expenses.”

Luis Martinez can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].