Renewed Efforts Underway to Identify Additional Budget Cuts
By Daniel Walsch
The university’s budget office has asked all academic and administrative
units to roll up their sleeves and identify ways to further reduce their budgets
over the next two years.
Gov. Mark Warner has called for each state agency to produce plans for budget
reductions of 7, 11, and 15 percent for the biennium (fiscal years 2003 and 2004)
by Sept. 20. The governor will then conduct a comprehensive review of the budget
forecast for fiscal years 2003 and 2004 in October and November; based on that
analysis, he will determine which scenarios from each agency to incorporate in
the budget proposal he will submit to the General Assembly at the end of this
calendar year. George Mason faces a budget reduction of either $7.3 million, $11.5
million, or $15.7 million.
For the university to meet the Sept. 20 deadline, each unit is to submit a
plan to its chief office by the end of the month. According to Senior Vice President
Maurice Scherrens, once this internal process is completed, President Alan Merten
and his president’s council will review each proposal to formulate an overall
package that will be sent to the governor’s office for consideration.
“In addition to the input from each of our units, we will also be taking
a hard look at the overall landscape of the university. With such substantial
reductions we will need to focus on strategies that will alter our vertical structure.
Rather than simply shave horizontal percentage reductions across the institution,
we will undoubtably decide to protect the integrity of selected activities while
discontinuing other activities,” Scherrens says.
“At this point, we have not ruled out any options as to how we deal
with cuts of this magnitude,” he says. “We will be working closely
with each academic and administrative unit to investigate revenue enhancing opportunities
with cost containment operational changes,” he adds. “Although we
are known as one of the most operationally-efficient universities in the commonwealth,
we must press on during these exercises to modify or eliminate existing practices
or procedures that lessen our institutional effectiveness.”
The governor issued this directive on Aug. 19 in a speech before the House
Appropriations, House Finance, and Senate Finance committees. He reported that
Virginia faces a “daunting” $1.5-billion budget shortfall for the
biennium. “With a substantial revenue shortfall in fiscal year 2002, and
with Virginia’s economic growth for fiscal years 2003 and 2004 now projected
to be significantly weaker than what the revenue forecast was based on, there
is no escape from the conclusion that we must reduce our revenue forecast for
the current biennium,” Warner said. To illustrate the size of this budget
shortfall, Warner said that it surpasses the combined biennial general fund budgets
of George Mason University, University of Virginia, Virginia Tech, the College
of William and Mary, Old Dominion University, and Virginia State.
No state agency, Warner said, will be exempt from budget reductions. He added
that each state agency will be given monthly spending limits that may not be exceeded.
However, spending limits for Virginia’s public colleges and universities
will be set quarterly.
Scherrens acknowledges that this hits George Mason hard since it is generally
understood that the university is already one of the most underfunded institutions
in the commonwealth. Scherrens promises that the university community will be
kept abreast of this situation as more information becomes available.
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