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 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 meeting has been rescheduled for March 11 at 3 p.m in the Hannaford Lecture Hall.
Botman cited the 2.7 percent decrease in next years pending state appropriations budget as being a prime cause of the budgetary gap.
USM’s share of lost 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 has no plans to cut additional jobs, 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.
At the request of the UMS board of trustees, the university is considering cutting degree programs that routinely graduate fewer than five students a year.
She emphasized that this does not necessarily apply as a strict rule for every department.
“I don’t think that the trustees believe that we can have a univeristy if we in fact eliminate chemistry and physics and Spanish,” she said.
“The trustees might direct a couple of universities to work together so that students have access to certain degrees without perhaps having every single degree on every campus.”
George Pattershall, assistant life safety systems supervisor for USM, asked Botman if the university planned to work with Southern Maine Community College to bring in new students and improve retention.
“I believe that the community colleges have an important place in American higher education,” she said.
“Having said that, I believe that a community college education is different from a university education.”
Botman says that USM faculty are currently working on a “2+2” plan to make the transition from SMCC to USM easier for students, by allowing a full transfer of credits and guaranteed admission for certain programs.
Pattershall, who is also a math instructor, believes that students who drop out in the first year need a reason to stay in school.
“I see a lot of these youngsters in my classes [with] no majors, no ties to the university,” he said.
“A lot of those students over there could be coaxed into coming over here to get their bachelors, instead of just stopping at their associates.”
Botman says that federal stimulus money received from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, recently approved by Congress, 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.
Botman emphasized that USM’s best hope for balancing next year’s budget lies in a total restructuring of the university, instead of just trying to keep up with setbacks caused by a rapidly declining global economy.
“USM has no choice but to become a more streamlined university,” she said.
USM’s deans are currently in the process of drafting a plan to restructure the school’s academic programs, and the second draft of the university-wide restructuring plan, which presents a long-term plan to reassess USM’s role and mission, was recently released for public review.
Botman remained optimistic about the future of the university, and praised the efforts of the faculty, staff and unions to achieve compromise in the face of global economic decay.
“In the four higher education institutions in which I have served, I have never seen the degree of self-sacrifice and willingness to work together that I have seen at USM,” she said.
Betty Hilton, a Gorham campus locksmith and Teamsters shop steward, shares Botman’s optimism.
“The entire world is [experiencing a] shortfall right now, and everything is going to get worse,” she said.
“We know it’s going to be tough, but if we come together as a community, we can overcome. We can’t let the university fail.”