If one promise rang loud and true at a special budget session of the Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday, it was that students’ academic programs will be protected first in The University of Memphis’ budget dilemma.
University President Shirley Raines reiterated they would have to make budget cuts but those budget cuts will protect the academic side above all.
“We will first protect our students,” Raines said. “We’ve made that promise from day one on every piece of correspondence that’s come out of our offices.”
Raines, Provost Ralph Faudree and Vice-President of Business and Finance Charles Lee attended the meeting and discussed proposed budget cuts from the Tennessee Board of Regents.
TBR currently allocates $189 million of the $261 million total budget for The University. Raines said the budget’s worst-case scenario would be a loss of $9.6 million from TBR’s current funding — about a five percent cut. To make up that dollar amount, The University would have to raise tuition by about 19 percent — a figure that is highly unlikely to pass through the TBR board.
Faudree addressed the concerns of many students that summer school classes won’t be held and said they are looking at summer, spring and fall semesters all through the same eyes.
“We spend a little over $4 million to run summer school, and it’s just part of the budget,” Faudree said. “We just don’t want it to get too large to where it affects the rest of the budget.”
Faudree said they allow department chairs to manage summer school the same way they manage the semesters. For example, if a department has eight students enrolled in one course and 45 enrolled in another, that’s OK because that course with eight people could be essential to students completing their graduation course work.
He did say they might have to go to larger sections. That would mean instead of offering a course in the spring and fall with 12 students enrolled, departments would offer that course only in the spring and enroll 24 students.
Raines said they still do not know exactly how much TBR will cut, so to decide now what The University will cut is premature.
Faculty salaries and benefits currently make up 70 percent of TBR’s appropriations for The U of M.
“The scenarios we’re dealing with are very tough to solve without looking at the salary part of it,” Lee said.
Some faculty expressed concerns about salary cuts and benefits for tenure-track professors.
“I haven’t heard anything about salary cuts,” Faudree said jokingly.
Raines said personnel cuts are inevitable according to the funding they think they are going to lose, and they would have to cut unfilled and filled positions. She did say, however, that she hopes they will be allowed to decide where to make the cuts.
“We just do not want them to make a decision in Nashville about how cuts will be taken,” Raines said. “Don’t tell us in Memphis how to make these cuts because Austin Peay and Memphis are very different from each other.”
Raines, Lee and Faudree are fairly new in their current positions and are changing some previous practices to try to find more dollars in the budget.
“We’re all looking at our operations with new eyes,” Raines said.
In the past, The University had some exempt accounts —accounts that were ultimately protected from any budget cuts. Nothing will be held back this year.
“Nothing is sacred here,” Raines said.
Lee said The University has been too conservative in these accounts and he is looking for ways to cut them. The accounts are in place for issues like extreme debt, longevity and death.
Raines concluded the meeting by emphasizing that The U of M needs to be sure to keep its students and its revenue.
“One of my fears is that word will get out that The University of Memphis is in such dire straits that students might go somewhere else,” Raines said. “Don’t back down in your recruitment.”
Raines also said because of the economic slump, students are not getting employed as quickly and may be more likely to come back to graduate school so they can be more competitive when the economy turns around.
“We need to work harder at getting people to the junior and senior level,” Raines said. “That comes from working hard to be more careful of admitting students who will be successful at The University of Memphis.”
Raines did give the faculty some encouraging statistics. She said about two years ago, The University was losing faculty at a 12 percent rate. The next year the rate went down to 8.6 percent and last year to 6.9 percent. The U of M’s goal is to get that rate to no more than the national average — 5 percent.
“Yes, this is a difficult time,” Raines concluded. “This too will pass.”
