Collegiate Times

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger has asked deans and vice presidents to develop plans to reduce the academic operating budget for the current school year by 1.5 percent.

Steger said in an e-mail to faculty yesterday that the university expects additional budget constraints in the 2009-10 school year, in addition to what the state government has said could be considerable reductions.

Programs not associated with individual colleges will absorb 3.5 percent of the budget reduction, ideally minimizing the effects on individual departments.

University spokesman Mark Owczarski said the programs whose funds will be affected have yet to be determined.

"There's probably 75 to 100 ways that they've done this," Owczarski said. "Virginia Tech has a $1 billion operating budget. It's very, very complex. There are a whole lot of people looking at every possible way to make up for this budget shortfall centrally."

The rise in the number of incoming freshmen at Tech could aid the university's attempt to compensate for their loss of funding.

"This year we had some extra students coming here, so this year we had some extra revenue," Owczarski said. "But that's just an example of many."

Steger added that other than recognizing the need to protect core operations, the university administration would not direct how the cuts should be implemented.

"All the different colleges will have to decide for themselves how they will have to make up for the budget shortfall," Owczarski said. "It may be that they have a position open but they don't fill it right away. They may cut back on conference travel."

And with the expected cuts in the future, Steger requested the deans and vice presidents construct more permanent plans by the first week in December, just before the governor will likely be releasing his budget for the upcoming year. Steger is requesting plans for cuts of 3 percent and 5 percent to next years budget.

College of architecture and urban studies dean Jack Davis said that the budget cuts will likely impact future hiring for his college. He also outlined the next steps for evaluating what to cut.

"We will have internal meetings with our school directors to find the money that needs to be cut," Davis said. "It will have to come from future hiring, as well as from operating budgets."

Davis noted that the e-mail sent by Steger was not the first time college deans had been informed of budget cuts.

Steger said that the reductions would require each department to consider the permanent elimination of some programs.

Tech's budget was shorted by a total of $11.3 million earlier this year, including an $8.9 million loss in the University Division, and a loss of $2.3 million in the Virginia Cooperative Extension and Agricultural Experiment Station Division.

But for Tech administrators, the timing of the budget cuts may have been the most inconvenient to the university.

"Any reduction is not a good thing, but a midstream reduction is disruptive at the very least," Owczarski said. "You don't want to do business operations by setting a budget that changes midway through."

College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences dean Sue Ott Rowlands said that for the most part, it is too early to tell what reductions will be made in her department.

"We'll have to go through a process to see what our options are, factoring in this years reductions, but also what we're going into for next year," Rowlands said. "It's impossible to continue to absorb budget reductions without it having an impact."

Rowlands noted that prioritizing and establishing a direction for the college will be crucial in the upcoming process.

"Once we have a little bit more information we'll have to sit down and look at what we gave back last year, what our priorities are for the college, and where we are going to find the additional funds," Rowlands said. "You can't keep doing what you're doing with less and less."