Even with the passing of a stop-gap budget, planning for the year’s revenues and expenditures will be difficult.

Calling it a “bridge bill,” Eastern president David Glassman said that while he was pleased the governor and General Assembly could agree on a bill, everyone would have preferred a full budget for FY’16 and FY’17.

“The funds appropriated to us in the bridge bill do allow for a temporary sigh of relief in the university’s cash flow needs, but it does not provide the answer as to what we can expect for our full FY’17 appropriation,” he said.

Without a full budget, Glassman said that the university must remain prudent in its expenditures and that expense reduction measures previously implemented will continue.

He added that the furlough requirement for administrative and professional employees has been rescinded and contracts for Unit B faculty have started to be issued.

Sen. Dale Righter said that though the state is good through December, legislators need to start thinking now.

“The stop-gap budget was just that, it’s a stop-gap measure put in place at the eleventh hour to stave off an even more serious crisis in higher education, state facilities – particularly Department of Corrections facilities whose vendors were on the brink of quitting and you were going to lose water and electricity – all of those things,” he said.

Righter said his hope is legislators thinking more globally like working together rather than just appropriation amount and spending money.

“That’s Springfield, that’s the institutions of higher learning like Eastern, like Lake Land, working together to figure out what is in the best interest of preparing the students to be successful in the 21st-century economy,” he said. “We get caught up in building budgets, salaries and negotiations – we let it get away from us that all these entities exist to serve the students.”

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

Jason Howell can be reached at 581-2812 or at [email protected]