Campus Budget
Chancellor Announces Executive Area Cuts
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December 16, 2008
To: UMass Amherst Campus Community
Over the last few weeks, you have received several communications from me regarding the difficult budget situation we face here on campus. Today, I want to share some preliminary information about how our central administration will make significant budget reductions in administrative spending and capital construction as part of the larger plans to deal with our budget shortfall.
As you probably know, we have formed a Budget Planning Task Force composed of faculty, students and staff – a group charged with providing analysis and recommendations for dealing with what is, clearly, a challenging budget. In fact, we project the budget shortfall for Fiscal Year 2010 to be roughly $38 million. There are no easy answers to a cut of this size, but I am hopeful that this group will provide innovative ideas to help me with the difficult choices ahead. In addition to the work of this task force, we’ve heard from many of you on campus through our budget website, and we have forwarded suggestions and ideas to the task force chair and to others on campus. I’ve met with union leadership and encouraged them to provide thoughts and insights on how to deal with our budget crisis, and we look forward to hearing suggestions from these organizations as well.
While all these efforts will continue, our central administration has also looked closely at our own budgets, and today I want to share with you some preliminary plans to cut these central areas – specifically in the Chancellor’s area, in Academic Affairs administration and in capital construction funding. While further cuts in our central administration will be required, and each of the vice chancellors will bring forward budget reduction plans, I thought it was important for us to make hard choices centrally now, and to share those with you.
Our university can and will deal with this very difficult financial crisis, but it will require sacrifice from all of us. Here is an outline of some of the cuts we will be making in our central administration:
- EXECUTIVE AREA CUTS/MERGERS – We will reduce spending in our administrative support units by more than $500,000 by merging functions in support of the Chancellor’s Office and the Office of the Provost and by eliminating other functions. Through elimination of positions and by creating a streamlined structure, we will create these savings.
- REDUCTIONS IN CAPITAL FUNDING – We will put on hold $5 million in capital construction spending immediately, and look to redirect this funding to other critical one-time need areas. In addition, we will cut approximately $1.5 million in base spending on maintenance and other capital construction projects on campus, including:
- A cut of $500,000 from the funding earmarked for refurbishing academic offices and laboratories.
- A cut of $464,000 in long-term deferred maintenance funds.
- A cut of $500,000 in funding for moves on campus which will reduce the campus’ ability to relocate administrative and academic units for renovations.
- ENERGY CONSUMPTION – Reducing energy consumption and costs was an idea that drew widespread support and suggestions from all segments of campus. While we have a special energy task force looking at all of these ideas, today I want to announce that we will set centrally controlled thermostats on campus down to 67 degrees. We ask that all personnel in buildings with user controlled thermostats set their office temperature at 67 degrees as well. While there are still many more ideas on this topic to come, we believe this step will help save money immediately.
- TRAVEL – We will curtail all administrative travel except for essential trips, but will continue to travel in support of generating revenues through either fundraising or governmental relations efforts.
- ADVOCACY -- We will also look to cut back spending on an outside contract to advocate for federal support. We will offset this cut in support funding by charging our existing legislative support staff with more effectively engaging our faculty, students and alumni in advocating for UMass Amherst. Even as we look to reduce outside spending in this area, we must commit as a campus community to redouble our efforts at advocating for UMass Amherst.
- EVENTS – We will cut back spending in support of community events at the Chancellor’s residence, and eliminate events where possible and appropriate.
We will continue to provide regular updates on the ongoing budget process and are committed to an open and transparent process. I know there are difficult decisions ahead, but in working together I believe we can weather this storm. I encourage the entire campus community to work closely together during this ongoing budget process and to continue to provide thoughts and suggestions via the webpage and through the task force.
Chancellor Robert C. Holub
