Through reserves saved from “conservative spending,” ETSU President Dr. Paul Stanton said that the university has met the Tennessee Board of Regents Nov. 1 budget reversion of more than $3 million.”Everyone has met the control points,” Stanton said on Oct. 15.

A large chunk of the money that ETSU had to cut from its budget – $1.7 million – is coming from one-time budget reserves. After the July 1 budget cut of 5.8 percent, Stanton said he feared that another budget cut was on its way. He told university departments to reserve as much funding as they could.

The additional cuts come from unfilled faculty or staff positions, and from frozen travel expenditures.

On Oct. 8, the university received word from Dr. Charles Manning, TBR chancellor, that ETSU faced a $2,061,800 reversion. Added to that was a $985,000 cut from the J. H. Quillen College of Medicine and a $193,000 cut from ETSU Family Practice.

Those cuts have now been met without a hike in tuition, layoffs or program cuts. However, with future cuts, Stanton said that those are a possibility.

“I anticipate that we will have another reversion within the next three months,” he said. “We could face a total reversion of 12 to 15 percent.”

Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen spoke on Oct. 14, Stanton said, about the fact that within the next few months the state could face a budget shortfall of $300 million. The repercussions of these budget cuts could last for years.

“I think the next year or two years are going to be difficult, and are going to be very hard times,” Stanton said.

To prepare for future budget reversions and the possibility of layoffs or program cuts, Stanton has assembled a “Reversion Planning Task Force.” The task force will consist of nine representatives of different aspects of the university.

The task force will consist of Vice President for Health Affairs and Chief Operating Officer Dr. Wilsie Bishop as chair, SGA President T.J. Mitchell, a representative from the council of chairs, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Gordon Anderson, Vice President for Academic Affairs Bert Bach, Vice President for Finance and Administration Dr. David Collins, Staff Senate Wanda Richardson, Faculty Senate President Paul Trogen and Dean of the College of Medicine Phil Bagnell.

“We don’t know what kind of decisions we’ll have to make, due to the severity of the reversions,” Stanton said, adding that the charge of the task force is to look at the “What if’s” of the situation. “We need to have a plan for each level of cut.”

Stanton added that a knee-jerk reaction is not the way he wants the university to handle severe budget cuts in the future.

Although layoffs and program cuts were avoided this time, Stanton said that students should definitely anticipatea tuition increase in July. He said that he has asked TBR not to do a mid-year tuition hike. That decision, however, comes directly from TBR, and not from the university administration.

Author