In the wake of COVID-19 impacts and university goals, the Finance and Administration committee of the ETSU Board of Trustees unanimously voted at a called meeting March 26 to recommend the adoption of an increase in student fees and tuition for the upcoming year, as well as a delay in salary increases across campus.
These approved recommendations will be sent to the ETSU Board of Trustees for confirmation at their April 23 meeting.
Citing new budget pressures and long term operational costs, the university is not prepared to increase the salary pool as planned.
“The first pool of funds is for an increase effective January 2021,” said BJ King, chief financial officer for business and finance. “There’s no funding for this pool. It would have to be supported with a supplemental appropriation from the state. And we’ll get word of that, but the word for that, we may not get notification of that until late in this fiscal year or even early in the next fiscal year.”
Without support from the state, King said that the salary increase would require 2.5 million in additional tuition collected. In lieu of this increase, the committee is exploring the option of a one-time bonus of $500 to all faculty and staff as long as expected state contribution is met.
In order to fund the salary effort and provide for programs within the university, such as the Student Government Association’s wellness initiative, the committee also voted to suggest a tuition increase for both graduate and undergraduate students. At 1.98% for undergrads and 1.67% for graduates, the changes fall within the current suggestions by the Tennessee Higher Education Commission. State institutions are expected to avoid tuition increases of more than 2% annually, but as of now this is not legally required. The change is expected to increase revenue by $1.98 million, which King explained would be pushed largely into the salary pool.
During committee discussion, the issue of direct national education relief was discussed and how funds will be used. University administration has waited on federal expectations as to how the money is intended to be spent, and upon receiving guidance last March 19, they are now prepared to use it to offset the impacts of COVID-19.
“Just for everyone’s knowledge, we did sort of a back-of-the-napkin math for our senate budget hearing documents, which showed our losses of revenue for spring, summer and fall were over $15 million,” said King. “So, I don’t think it’s hard to say that lost revenue is going to eat up that entire portion of money that we have coming in if we recognize all the losses that we have, institution-wise.”
For more information regarding the actions of the Board of Trustees, visit etsu.edu/trustees.
