Even with increase, UM short $5.2 million
The UM system will be short $5.2 million in next year's budget, even with a 5 percent tuition-rate increase that will add $6.7 million in revenue.
Published April 28, 2006
The UM system will be short $5.2 million in next year's budget, even with a 5 percent tuition-rate increase that will add $6.7 million in revenue.
Nikki Krawitz, UM system vice president for finance and administration, said the system would be short if the General Assembly passed the budget that the Missouri Senate approved this past week, which would give the UM system roughly $412 million.
"Even with the marginal increase in revenue from state appropriations and tuition, we'd still have $5.2 million to go for balancing the budget for next year," Krawitz said.
UM system spokesman Joe Moore said university administrators were still discussing solutions.
"We will be discussing, with the different campuses, the options for covering that gap," Moore said.
He said that though the higher education budget was still under discussion, the UM system had no plans to ask for financial help to pay for the $5.2 million gap.
"I'm not aware of any effort to ask for additional money from the legislature," Moore said.
Moore said UM system President Elson Floyd appreciated the 2 percent increase in state funding that added $7.8 million to the system's budget.
Krawitz said the UM system Board of Curators next week would discuss possible solutions at its meeting in St. Louis.
Krawitz said in cases where the UM system would have to decide between academic and administrative costs, administrative costs usually were cut first.
"We want to preserve our instructional programs' value," she said.
Krawitz said cutting administrative costs included, "not filling administrative positions, reducing utility costs, reducing costs for computers and other supplies and equipment."
Representative Carl Bearden, R-St. Charles, said universities across the state needed to analyze spending and remove unnecessary programs in times of economic crisis. Bearden is among the state lawmakers who have criticized universities for inefficiency.
"Many institutions in the state have programs that have outlived their usefulness," Bearden said. "Maybe it was an alumni program, maybe there just weren't students interested anymore, but there are a number of those that should be eliminated." Bearden said the amount of professors and funding that universities have should reflect the need of students.
"There's a lack of flexibility in the way that institutions implement their programs," Bearden said.
He said he could not comment on the UM system's situation.
Representative Judy Baker, D-Columbia, said that the UM system has a consistent record of productively working on minimal funds.
"I'm continually aware that the UM system has had, in the past four or five years, to do more with less," Baker said.
Baker said the UM system is not to blame for the $5.2 million gap.
"I have yet to be convinced it's the university's inefficiencies that are causing the increase in tuition," Baker said. "The reason tuition is going up is that state appropriations are going down."
