At last Tuesday’s “Town Meeting” held in Gorham, USM President Selma Botman announced that the university’s budget for 2010 is already projected to be $4.3 million in the red.
This deficit may end up being larger if tuition from this year’s summer session doesn’t bring in $3.9 million in revenue, Botman said.
“We don’t know where the $4.3 million [in] cuts will come from, but we do know that they will be very hard,” she told the nearly 100 people assembled in the Hastings Formal Lounge.
Originally slated to be delivered on all three campuses, Monday’s scheduled event in Portland was canceled due to the weather. The president’s office has yet to reschedule a meeting on the Portland campus.
Botman cited the 2.7 percent decrease in next years pending state appropriations budget as being a prime cause of the budgetary gap.
Losses of income from the University of Maine System’s investments account for an additional $1 million, according to a printout distributed at the meeting.
Botman said that the university is not currently planning to cut any additional jobs in 2009, though she stresses that current projections for the coming year could change.
“Although we do not anticipate any layoffs in [fiscal year] 2009, the situation in 2010 is very uncertain,” she said.
“USM has no choice but to become a more streamlined university.”
Botman says that any federal stimulus money received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act approved by Congress last week, would not provide a long-term solution to USM’s structural problems.
“We are waiting for the state and [University of Maine] System office to give us some guidance, but it is unrealistic to expect any relief in terms of ongoing operating expenses,” she said.
USM’S projected expenditures for 2010:
$104.5 million in personnel costs.
$32 million in goods and services.
$5.3 million in fuel and electricity
$0.8 million in capital expenditures.