President Richard Pattenaude announced specific plans to cut over $1.5 million from the 2002/2003 operating budget late last week. University officials say the cuts put the University just above subsistence levels.
The move comes in response to a major increase in projected health care costs for the University of Maine System.
Pattenaude’s plan doesn’t include layoffs, but calls for leaving several open positions unfilled while shuffling some services. Officials also say the impact on students will likely be minimal.
“The message at the end of this is while no one had to be laid off and there wasn’t any significant loss of services to students, we’re at the bare bones level,” said Craig Hutchinson, vice president for Student Development.
Hutchinson, who oversees dozens of departments that deal with students such as Residence Life and Athletics, cut over $132,000 overall. He was able to eliminate two unfilled professional staff positions and get alternate funding for a third position. He also asked his departments to collectively cut an additional $20,000 and isn’t exactly sure where the money’s coming from.
Hutchinson said that while $20,000 may seem like a relatively small amount, in his 14 years with the University he doesn’t ever remember having the Student Development budget increase. Therefore, he’s trying to offer quality service to students and expand programs with less money than was available in 1988.
“So taking $20,000 from the lack of that increase is a major undertaking,” said Hutchinson.
Other University officials concede that USM is badly underfunded.
“You don’t take $1.5 million out of an institution like this and not feel some pain,” said Bob Caswell, executive director of Media and Community Relations. “This is an underfunded institution.”
But Caswell said the University was able to make the cuts while meeting its goals.
“The goal was to protect people and protect the academic core,” he said. “I think that’s been achieved.”
The division that plans to cut its budget the most is Academic Affairs, proposing $672,000. The Division of Finance and Administration follows plans to cut over $472,000, followed by over $177,000 from Enrollment Management, over $132,000 from Student Development, over $32,000 from University Advancement and $7,000 from Campus Diversity and Equity.
Earlier in the year the Governor ordered USM to return over $700,000 from this year’s budget because of a slowdown in state revenue.
Pattenaude said this cut is not related to the state’s budget problems and that the Governor and the Legislature have said they will protect an expected 2.5 percent increase in next year’s state funding.
Executive Editor Steve Peoples can be contacted at: [email protected]