Poor budget avoids tuition increase but universities still at risk

By Jon Stonehouse
Western Herald

With the Michigan budget short millions of dollars for the fiscal year of 2009, cities and universities in particular are sweating it out along with members of the state legislature.

Not only did universities escape the first round of budget cuts in December untouched, but student tuition may have missed an increase as well.

“It’s too late in the year to consider any tuition increase,” said Lowell Rinker, Vice president of business and finance for Western Michigan University.

“[But] it was a possibility.”

Rinker, who also serves as treasurer to the Board of Trustees at WMU, said that if the first round of budget cuts were made a month earlier, tuition increases would have been a likely option.

“To do that we would have needed to know what the state cuts would be in November,” he said. “It’s simply too late in the fiscal year to reassess revenues.”

Higher education may have escaped the first round of budget cuts unscathed, but Rinker said it’s likely the second round will cut into funding.

“I’d be very surprised if higher education was immune from cuts twice in a row,” Rinker said, estimating a $400 million shortfall in Michigan’s budget.

Greg Rosine, vice president of legislative affairs at WMU, was surprised that the school survived the first round at all.

“That’s the first time that has happened in quite some time,” he said.

“Normally higher education is on the chopping block early on.”

Rosine, who has served in the Legislative Affairs office for four years, said on Friday lawmakers are expected to assemble to assess budget concerns before the next state legislative session Jan. 12. In addition, he said the governor expects more problems in drafting the budget for 2010.

Even on the brink of crisis, items on the budget list ranged from a new state business tax, health insurance rates and the building of a light rail line in Detroit. Spokeswoman Liz Boyd told the Detroit News that Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s favorite budget item is a public smoking ban.

Gearing up for the first state legislative session of the year on Jan. 12, lawmakers will access the governor’s executive order issued in December to combat what some estimate the budget hole to be as much as $1.5 billion. The governor is obligated by law to issue executive orders to decrease the budget if it is not in balance.

On a national level, Rinker and Rosine both expressed that their offices were waiting in anticipation for what the economic stimulus package and incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama will do to address economic concerns and aid the funding of higher education.

One of Obama’s only moves in education thus far has resulted in controversy when he recently named Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education. Duncan served for seven years as the superintendent of a failing Chicago Public Schools system.

Even the city of Kalamazoo is starting to feel the pinch of budget cuts. City commissioners will also go to work Jan. 12 and Jan. 17 in two sessions to assess the 2009 budget and concerns for 2010.

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Posted by HeraldAdmin on Jan 8 2009. Filed under Campus, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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