UI to make $4.75 million in cuts

University of Idaho President Tim White on Monday announced job cuts meant to slash $4.75 million from the school’s annual budget after debt ballooned following a failed 2003 expansion attempt in Boise.

He’ll cut 67 nonacademic jobs, mostly accomplished by not filling 40 now-vacant positions.

His plan calls for the firing of 27 people, 17 in classified positions including maintenance workers and 10 in so-called non-faculty exempt jobs such as managers.

White wants to reduce debt estimated at as much as $20.7 million that was exacerbated by chronic budget deficits and by the collapse of its $136 million University Place satellite-campus project in Boise. The three-building plan fell apart amid questions of financial mismanagement, and a single building survived.

“Every year, we were spending more than we had,” White told the Associated Press in an interview. “We have a balanced budget after the actions that we took today.”

White, a former Oregon State University provost who arrived at Idaho last summer, plans to set aside about $2 million a year to repay the university’s debt.

And he told employees who keep their jobs they’ll have heavier workloads.

“We’re going to do all we can to help our co-workers who will be losing employment and also those who remain and are confronted with absorbing responsibilities for critical services,” White said.

The school, which plans to help fired employees find new jobs, has already hired a turnaround expert to return to stability.

David Chichester, 59, who helped return Starbucks Coffee Co.’s Japanese subsidiary to a profit, will be paid $20,000 a month to temporarily take over the university’s finances.

Following Monday’s cuts, White said another round of proposed changes will be presented to the Idaho State Board of Education in mid-May for the panel’s approval June 16.

That will be aimed at redirecting priorities to curriculum that focuses on science and technology, liberal arts and other subjects that are seen playing a key role in the future of Idaho’s economy – and eliminating other programs that may be waning, he said.

“It is an internal prioritization for matters of the future,” White said. “And letting go of some things, yet to be defined, that we’ve done in the past.”

That probably won’t result in significant savings, he said, as money will be shifted within the university to the new priorities.

Faculty members are gathering departmental data this week and next to help White make decisions on which academic programs should be scaled back, said Douglas Adams, secretary of the school’s faculty council.

“People generally recognize that changes have to be made,” said Adams. Still, he said, “it’s hard to imagine giving high marks to a program that downsizes our university.”