Budget cuts beset colleges

Construction, jobs, classes on block

Public universities plan to ax classes, leave jobs vacant and delay construction projects in the hopes of avoiding layoffs as the state struggles with a budget shortfall that could approach $2 billion.

UNC system leaders, following the direction of Gov. Mike Easley and UNC president Erskine Bowles, have told campuses to prepare for cuts of at least 4 percent this year, meaning they will receive 96 percent of the state funding they had anticipated. Students might not feel cuts right away, but campus leaders say course and staffing reductions will likely become evident by next year.

The reductions, some made already and some to come, are a response to the state's warning early in the fiscal year that cuts are coming, said Rob Nelson, the UNC system's vice president for finance.

"We got early notice and they're temporary cuts, and we have flexibility, so we're working hard to minimize the impact to the classroom," Nelson said. "The challenge will be if the economy doesn't get better by July 1. Then we might have to work next year with the governor and the General Assembly to make permanent cuts. That will be a difficult challenge."

Some campuses and academic departments with plenty of unfilled positions or those bolstered by grants can absorb the pain with little effect. But at others, salaries account for 95 percent or more of the operating budget.

Sparing the classroom

At N.C. State University, for example, some faculty members are cutting their own salaries and some instructors have volunteered to teach for free. Campus leaders are crafting plans for cuts up to 6 percent -- just in case.

Faculty Chairman Jim Martin is afraid the cuts will reach the classroom.

"I think there is no chance that sections won't be canceled," said Martin, a chemistry professor. "And little chance that some faculty and staff won't be cut."

In NCSU's English department, where 17,000 students, majors and non-majors alike, take courses each year, personnel costs account for almost 99 percent of the budget. With the fall semester more than halfway done, big cuts will come in the spring, in effect doubling the 4 percent cut.

Classes taught by nearly 70 instructors will be reduced. Those instructors, who are not on the tenure track, will take pay cuts but will retain benefits. Some faculty members have volunteered to reduce teaching loads and lower pay while others will take a voluntary, 10 percent cut to their summer pay.

At NCSU's School of Public and International Affairs, three instructors felt so badly about how the cuts would affect students that they offered to teach their spring semester classes without pay.

"I don't teach for the money," said land-use lawyer Eric Braun, who was planning to teach a graduate class with Raleigh planning director Mitch Silver. "It's a public service as far as I'm concerned, and I enjoy it and think it's important for the students."

NCSU's mathematics department is in a similar bind, said its head, Aloysius G. Helminck. If the cuts go deep enough, some instructors will be dropped and some class sizes could double, he said. "We'll have bigger classes and instruction will be of a lower quality," said Helminck.

Budgeting is complex

At UNC Chapel Hill's Gillings School of Public Health, dean Barbara Rimer is cutting $500,000 from her school's budget. She's doing so the same semester that her school celebrated its largest private gift ever, $50 million from Quintiles Transnational Corp. founder Dennis Gillings and his wife, Joan.

That juxtaposition illustrates the complicated nature of budgeting at state universities.