{"id":11706,"date":"2008-12-03T15:03:28","date_gmt":"2008-12-03T22:03:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=11706"},"modified":"2013-09-18T09:42:11","modified_gmt":"2013-09-18T16:42:11","slug":"campus-strategizes-over-impending-budget-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/campus-strategizes-over-impending-budget-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"Campus strategizes over impending budget cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-11709\" alt=\"John Haeger\" src=\"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/forum.jpg\" width=\"360\" height=\"240\" srcset=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/402\/2013\/02\/forum.jpg 360w, https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/402\/2013\/02\/forum-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 360px) 100vw, 360px\" \/>Northern Arizona University and President\u00a0<strong>John Haeger<\/strong>\u00a0are preparing to battle a formidable opponent, and they don&#8217;t even know who it is yet.<\/p>\n<p>With a decrease to the institution&#8217;s current budget looming large, the campus is facing a variety of scenarios that may arise when the state Legislature announces the university&#8217;s budget cut, which could be anywhere up to 10 percent or more\u2014and that&#8217;s from the current budget.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We don&#8217;t want to make cuts that imperil the future,&#8221; Haeger said during a campus-wide forum Monday in the High Country Conference Center.<\/p>\n<p>Addressing a crowd of more than 400 people as well as an online audience, Haeger said the university&#8217;s goal is to make decisions on budget reductions that reflect NAU&#8217;s mission, strategic plan and priorities.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;University priorities take precedence over all other priorities, since they benefit the whole,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>To address the upcoming budget decrease, the president announced six immediate steps:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>freeze on hiring with any exceptions requiring the president&#8217;s approval<\/li>\n<li>limiting tenure-track searches for FY09-10 to positions necessary for accreditation<\/li>\n<li>travel restricted to &#8220;critical university needs&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>continued review of expenditures greater than $50,000<\/li>\n<li>increase in university fees and charges<\/li>\n<li>increase university administrative fee to 8 percent for FY10<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>He also has set targeted cuts to each vice presidential area, including the Office of the Provost, whose budget is about 54 percent of NAU&#8217;s fluid funds, 92 percent of which is salaries and employee-related expenses, or ERE. Salaries and ERE account for 75 percent of NAU&#8217;s total budget.<\/p>\n<p>These steps are in addition to actions already taken, which include delayed searches for several administrative positions, more than 20 tenure-track positions and 15 to 20 staff positions.<\/p>\n<p>The university&#8217;s budget cuts are the result of an anticipated shortfall in state revenue of about $1.2 billion in FY09 and a projected shortfall of $2.2 billion to $3 billion in FY10, which begins July 1. The Legislature may meet in a special session this month to address the budget.<\/p>\n<p>The president presented a scenario for a 6 percent budget cut for FY09. If the cut approaches 10 percent or more, Haeger said, &#8220;A very different approach would be required.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>At 10 percent\u2014around $16 million\u2014the university would have to consider layoffs, cuts in academic programs, decreases in service and &#8220;substantial&#8221; increases in tuition and fees.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Some universities have even come back with midyear tuition increases,&#8221; he pointed out.<\/p>\n<p>The Arizona university system also will work with a new political structure in Arizona with Jan Brewer assuming the governor&#8217;s role for Gov. Janet Napolitano, who has been nominated by President-elect Barack Obama for homeland security secretary. Brewer most likely will take office around February. The state Legislature also has a host of new leaders in the House and Senate.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Gov. Napolitano will settle the &#8217;09 budget, but the FY10 budget will be from a new Legislature,&#8221; Haeger said.<\/p>\n<p>The president also shared some of the discussion that arose Nov. 15 at a scheduled Leadership Day.<\/p>\n<p>Some of the suggestions included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Charge market rates for services provided to outside entities. Haeger said the idea is valid, but because NAU is part of a smaller, rural community, the idea would have to be carefully weighed.<\/li>\n<li>Outsource some NAU services. &#8220;I&#8217;m asking for a business plan regarding outsourcing,&#8221; Haeger said in response to a question from the audience. &#8220;You have to be careful with outsourcing, because once you go there, you can&#8217;t go back.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Postpone software upgrades and equipment purchases<\/li>\n<li>Weatherize buildings<\/li>\n<li>Use electronic routing of forms. &#8220;It&#8217;s our chance to be a paperless campus,&#8221; the president said.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Answering a member of the audience, Haeger said that the university has made no plans to cut employee benefits, including heath care and tuition discounts.<\/p>\n<p>Go to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www4.nau.edu\/president\/budgetinfo.htm\" target=\"_blank\">nau.edu\/budgetinfo<\/a>\u00a0to view a webcast of the session, download a copy of the president&#8217;s PowerPoint presentation and view the budget guiding principles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"search-results-excerpt-link\" href=\"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/campus-strategizes-over-impending-budget-cuts\/\">Northern Arizona University and President\u00a0John Haeger\u00a0are preparing to battle a formidable opponent, and they don&#8217;t even know who it is yet. With a decrease to the institution&#8217;s current budget looming large, the campus is facing a variety of scenarios that may arise when the state Legislature announces the university&#8217;s budget cut, which could be anywhere&hellip;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":11709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-campus-community"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}