Chancellors tell subcommittee the consequences of 10 percent state cut




Updated 1:00 PM April 14, 2003
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Chancellors tell subcommittee the consequences of 10 percent state cut

By Laurel Thomas Gnagey

Chancellors Daniel Little of U-M-Dearborn and Juan Mestas of U-M-Flint each had an opportunity to tell the Michigan House Subcommittee on Higher Education Appropriations how Gov. Jennifer Granholm's proposed 10 percent cut to higher education would affect their institutions.

Chancellor Daniel Little (Courtesy U-M Dearborn)

Little said U-M-Dearborn will move forward with its plans to increase enrollment as one way to cope with a potential $2.8 million cut. The campus now enrolls 8,700 students and has plans to grow by 3 percent a year to reach 10,000 students by 2007.

"This cannot be a time of retrenchment; for the good of our students and our region, we have to move forward," Little told the subcommittee March 26. "Our state and region's economy is dependent on the educational attainment of its citizens."

Little said U-M-Dearborn will look for areas to cut expenses beyond what already is being done to reduce utility costs, use technology to reduce postage and printing costs, and refinance debt. He said a tuition increase is being considered but that it will be moderate. He also said more financial aid will be available to help offset the tuition hike. In addition, the University will launch a new capital campaign, and more will be asked of corporate, community and foundation partners, and alumni, he said.

Mestas appeared before the subcommittee April 2 and told members that U-M-Flint will lose $2.4 million under the governor's proposal. He told the nine-member panel that U-M-Flint is as lean as it can get, with what he called "hardly any luxuries."

"Just to give you an example, I would be willing to eliminate our entire athletic program—if we had one. Whatever fat—real or perceived—there was in our operation, it was sliced away by those two cuts," Mestas said, referring to the first two cuts in state aid totaling 3.5 percent, which were announced earlier in the fiscal year (an additional 6.5 percent in cuts was announced by the governor in March). "No trace of fat, not even the memory of fat, remains."

Chancellor Juan Mestas (Call Photography)

Mestas said maintenance has been deferred, campus reserves already have been exhausted and other measures have been taken to cut the Flint budget to bare bones.

"We have made our rooms colder in the winter and will make them warmer in the summer," he said. "We have frozen positions and curtailed non-essential spending."

Mestas told the subcommittee that Flint faculty and staff members have been told they likely will not receive raises, and students have been put on notice that a tuition hike is inevitable.

"We will do our best to avoid layoffs for reasons of quality, civic responsibility and humaneness," he said. "First, we already have a lean operation, and a reduction in personnel is bound to have a negative impact on the quality of our services and activities. Second, unemployment is already high in the Flint region, and we should not make a bad situation worse. And third, we are a humane community that values its members and appreciates the family hardships caused by the loss of a job. We will do our best to avoid them, but we cannot guarantee there will not be layoffs. There cannot be guarantees when the cuts are so deep."

The House Subcommittee on Higher Education Appropriations was expected to pass its version of the budget last week and forward it to the full House Appropriations Committee, but that has been delayed until later in the month. The Senate Subcommittee on Higher Education Appropriations has scheduled its hearings for May 2 at Central Michigan University, May 9 at Ferris State University, May 16 at U-M-Ann Arbor and May 30 at Alma College.

Chancellors tell subcommittee the consequences of 10 percent state cut

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