WSU Braces For Budget Cuts, Job Vacancies Funds Being Shifted Internally To Pay For 2 Percent Salary Hikes

Anxiety is spreading at Washington State University as a deadline nears for budget cuts.

Several colleges at WSU are considering eliminating vacant positions in the ranks of faculty, teaching assistants and staff to make budget reductions requested last December.

“There’s a real concern on the part of the faculty because it cuts into their ability to meet needs,” Faculty Senate Vice Chairman Robert Greenberg said Monday. “We are not dealing with that much fat here.”

Each college must have plans for at least a 2.5 percent budget reduction complete by March 30. WSU Provost Gretchen M. Bataille plans to reallocate the money internally for classroom technology, the libraries and 2 percent salary increases that the Legislature approved but did not fund.

The 2 percent raise is the only increase faculty members will get, but many fear WSU administrators are sending the wrong message to legislators by reducing spending internally to pay for raises.

Four colleges - nursing, liberal arts, engineering and sciences - must cut even deeper to pay back old debts from lagging enrollment two years ago. Those colleges had negotiated payback plans with former Provost Thomas George, who left WSU in 1996.

“I think the assumption was: ‘There’s a new provost and she will forget or won’t know,”’ said Bataille, who agreed to forgive half of each college’s old debt.

“We were planning our budget based on them paying us back.”

To trim 4.6 percent from its budget, the College of Sciences is considering the elimination of faculty teaching assistant and staff positions that are vacant, said Dean Leon Radziemski.

“We are trying to minimize the impact on occupied positions of any sort, but there will be some that have to sunset.”

College of Liberal Arts departments are debating which programs will be affected by its 3.3 percent budget reduction.

“Something obviously has to give, so it’s a no-win situation,” said Liberal Arts interim Dean Gail Chermak.

The college plans to cut only vacant positions at this point.

“But clearly, a reduction of this magnitude is going to change the environment and climate, so I think everybody is going to feel the stress,” Chermak said.

Some already are. The reductions come as liberal arts faculty responsibilities are growing to accommodate WSU’s diversity efforts, which have created courses in minority studies and women’s studies.

“This is not a good time for us,” said Chermak. We have lots of opportunities to grow, but people feel there isn’t as much consideration for the Pullman core instructional programs as there should be.”

The Legislature ties university funding to enrollment targets set by the state Higher Education Coordinating Board.

While enrollment surged by 171 students at WSU’s Vancouver campus in 1997-98, WSU’s Pullman campus grew by only 44 students - 581 below the prediction.

This week, the Legislature is expected to approve a $2.6 million funding reduction because WSU expects 451 fewer new full-time students in the next school year.

Predictions were set high to absorb an anticipated increase in high school graduates, but those graduates aren’t enrolling at WSU at the rate officials had hoped.

The University of Washington took 500 more students than expected this year, which likely hurt WSU’s enrollment, Bataille said.

, DataTimes