In order to balance the budget for this fiscal year, the University reduced expenditures by $3.2 million.
The cut was made across institutional budgets due to a limited tuition increase of 6 percent and an overall state support cut of 3 percent.
‘Every area has had to reduce costs, in some areas they are not hiring positions,’ said Linda Dobb, executive vice president. ‘We are probably going to implement a program where people who want to retire can retire and then come back part time and we won’t fill those full-time positions for a while.’
Overall, the educational budget went up with most of the increase going into funding for financial aid and increases in salary and benefits primarily health care.
However, the total increase in expenses was greater than the total increase in revenue, according to Chris Dalton, senior vice president of finance and administration.
‘The problem is not really the tuition issue, the problem that we had to deal with was the state support cut of $2.2 million,’ Dalton said.
In general, reductions across all areas were 3.2 percent in areas that are not directly involved with construction and half of that level, or 1.55 percent, in areas that were involved in construction. This included the elimination of 25 faculty and staff positions, though the vast majority of those positions were vacant.
Dobb stated that there has been a steady decline in state funding for the last several years in the state of Ohio.
‘There’s a decrease in state subsidy and we’re trying to be pretty diligent about our costs, our hiring and the types of salary increases we give,’ Dobb said. ‘We’ve been very cautious over the last five years about everything so I would say this year has just been more of the same. We have to be very careful about what money we spend and what we spend it on.’
The University is attempting to implement programs that are designed to save money and minimize expenditures. For one, the science library is being reformulated and the books will eventually be moved into the Jerome Library.
Other areas are saving money by hiring part-time secretarial help and limiting work travel.
‘Despite the fact that there is no doubt we are not getting the type of state support that we once got, I’m still optimistic about the future,’ Dobb said.
‘The University has been pretty conservative in that we aren’t having to lay-off people and we’re not doing some of the things that other universities are doing. I think we are still providing a good level of service to our students which is the primary reason we’re here.’