ABAC budget expects to worsen before it gets better

By: Joseph Smith

Posted: 1/26/10

As the new semester kicks off, the school's budget prepares to take another hit.

The recent drop in the state budget is affecting all colleges, including ABAC. According to "The System Supplement", the state budget for this fiscal year has been reduced by eight percent.

"We're treading into some new area that the school has not been in a long time," Vice President of Fiscal Affairs John Clemens said.

Due to planning ahead, ABAC will not be immediately affected by the decrease.

"We have made steps in the past couple of years to soften the blows we thought were coming," Clemens said.

President David Bridges added, "The governor did announce some adjustments to the current year budget for most state agencies, but we had already accommodated those, so it wasn't anything new for the University System."

Bridges added that ABAC and the University System had accommodated the additional three days of furlough cuts for faculty and staff.

"I sent out an e-mail to faculty and staff that said we had already done the three days the Governor is talking about, in terms of furlough," Bridges said.

Bridges commented that Governor Purdue has proposed just over $100 million in new funding for the University System.

"That will get played with," Bridges said, "and then the Governor will have his final chance in May or so, when he signs the budget."

Students will not be largely affected, due to careful decisions made by the college.

"The President has made education his highest priority," Clemens said, "So areas that impact the students…as far as education…are the last areas we are going to cut." This means other areas on campus, including maintenance, utilities, staffing support will continue to suffer budget cuts for a while.

"Every effort is being done by this administration," Clemens said, "to soften the blow and reduce the effects on the students in the educational programs."

Despite the careful planning and preparations, it is still unknown just how large an impact this will have on ABAC.

"We think we have managed everything such that it won't be very bad," Clemens said. "In fact, we may have managed it well enough that there will be very little impact. But, we never know until the numbers are finally put in front of us."

Several faculty and staff members have recently retired, and ABAC is doing what it can to fill the positions that it absolutely needs to function.

"There are some individuals that have retired that we can't do without," Clemens said, "Some of those positions directly affect the education process, research, or the grant producing processes."

Clemens hopes to diminish the negative effects of not having these positions filled without actually filling them, "because of no funds to fill them."

Both Clemens and Bridges expect the decrease in budget to get worse before it gets better.

"All indications are that the South lags far behind the North as far as the [economic] impact," Clemens said. "It seems like the economic downturn hit the North first, and they're starting to come back. The South is starting to lag behind, so we'll probably lag behind the recovery as well…I'm hoping we're at or near the bottom of the economic downturn."

Clemens expects the low budget slum to continue through this year and part of next year.

Several details involving the budget are still unknown at this point, so no definitive outcome can be predicted. We will follow up on this story as more details arise.