Less than a week after Governor Bob Taft proposed higher taxes in his sobering State of the State Address, Graduate Student Senate will have the opportunity to play a crucial role in the decision making process of any future budget cuts at the University.

Speaking candidly at Friday’s Graduate Student Senate (GSS) meeting, Edward Whipple, vice president for student affairs, considers the responsibility of GSS members no small task.

“This is a subject that I hope Graduate Student Senate will become actively engaged in,” he said. “Your input is very important, and I hope you’ll take that seriously.”

The state of Ohio, in keeping with a statute that dictates that it must have a balanced budget at the end of every fiscal year, must find about $720 million before June 30.

Taft has already signed an executive order cutting state spending by $121 million and proposes raising taxes on cigarettes and alcohol.

“As is the issue in many other states, the financial situation is not good,” Whipple said.

Cuts in education funding, however, didn’t make it into Taft’s speech.

“In his reduction plan, he excluded K-12 and higher education,” Whipple said. “He did say though if his proposal didn’t go through, he’d have no choice, which is probably understandable, to go back and ask higher education and K-12 to take budget cuts.”

In the event that the University loses funding from the state, administrators figure it to be a heavy chunk of change.

“What that means for Bowling Green State University, we think right now, is that if we were asked to help reduce the budget, it would be about $2.4 million,” Whipple said. “And that’s really tough in a budget year when you’re already halfway through.”

Discussions are already occurring throughout the University to find ways to cut this potential amount of money, but large tuition hikes are currently not planned.

“One of the ways to raise revenue is through tuition and fees and that’s something, of course, we’re not advocating,” Whipple said. “Obviously the intent would be to keep tuition as low as possible.”

But considering the situation within the Ohio House and Senate as well as the fact that Ohio ranks among the top 10 most expensive states in which to attend higher education, this could prove to be tricky for administrators.

“We’re dealing with a very conservative Republican legislature, both the House and the Senate, and neither group is real interested in raising taxes,” Whipple said. “It poses some real challenges.”

According to Whipple, the University, however, may not be as bad off as other state schools, colleges and universities.

“I think the institution is pretty well prepared because we haven’t spent all of our dollars,” he said. “There are other institutions in the state that might be in a little more critical situation.”

The University is already in the process of finding ways to cut costs.

“We’ve kept a lot of positions open, so we have what is called ‘salary savings,'” Whipple said. “Those dollars would come from positions not filled, so we would look at operating costs that we could start trimming back.”

‘Salary savings’ are good news for graduate students who are looking to teach to fulfill graduation requirements.

“We’re in a fairly good position as graduate students,” Matt Daley, treasurer of GSS, said. “If there are open positions, it means that they need us [graduate students] more than ever to teach courses, proctor and help maintain quality education.”

However the fact that any budget cuts in the future will still impact graduate students is a reason for GSS members to stay actively involved in various committees to represent the needs of graduate students.

“Make sure that representatives that have seats on appropriate committees are engaged and bring forth issues and concerns for graduate students,” Whipple said to GSS at their Friday meeting.

“Students are very much a part of how we go about deciding what our plan is.”

Despite what happens to the University’s budget, GSS programming will continue.

“We’re going to be thinking about ways to make GSS more appropriate to the community and get us fully involved,” Daley said.

“We’re trying to get our programming up and get that into a more effective mode.”