In attempt to close the budget gap at MU, tuition has been raised and hopes are high for an increase in enrolled students. The gap MU is facing is $22.5 million, MU spokesman Christian Basi said.

“(That is) with some assumptions, including a 3 percent faculty salary increase, the tuition hike and the current state budget proposal,” Basi said. “That also includes (an estimated) 800 to 1,000 more students, with an increase in out-of-state students.”

So far, nothing is inked in pen yet in regard to the budget for next year. Budget talks are still continuing, Basi said.

“We’re not through the budget process yet,” he said. “More could change.”

During last Thursday’s Faculty Council meeting, Chancellor Brady Deaton brought up MU’s effort to move ahead, despite having to cut back in places.

“We are trying to come to terms (with the budget),” Deaton said. “We feel pretty good about where we’ve come out, given (what) we have faced.”

Deaton said managing the budget was not an impossible task.

“(The budget gap) is manageable with tremendous stress,” he said.

In reference to the likelihood of layoffs, Deaton said they were occurring across the board in the UM System with at least 50 positions to disappear at MU.

“Twenty are tenure-track positions,” he said. “We expect most of those to be open positions, but not all of them.”

That is enough to make some professors wary.

Faculty Council Chairman Harry Tyrer is disappointed that positions have to be cut, but sees it as good news that a “substantial fraction” of the positions are open ones.

“There may be some measure of attrition by retirement and moves and things like that,” Tyrer said.

At some universities, adjunct faculty, which are often part-time and lack benefits, are hired to teach extra courses. At MU, it is a way to continue a course for a short time, Tyrer said.

“Some of these (adjunct faculty) are individuals who aren’t going to stay, so eventually they will need to be replaced,” he said. “So it’s in MU’s interest to fill these (open tenure-track) faculty positions.”

Deaton is following the strategic plan to figure out how MU’s resources should be allocated, including where faculty cuts could be made.

“For the most part, it will be in the lower priority areas,” he said.

It is not known which departments the cuts could even come from. Singling out departments that are not providing relevance to MU would be very difficult, Tyrer said.

“The big misapprehension is that (there is) all this deadwood floating around,” he said. “That’s just not the case.”

Faculty Council’s preference would be to fill the open tenure-track faculty positions, but also knows that the budget might not allow for that. It is a reality in Missouri where there is a very low tax base, Tyrer said.

“The funny thing about this is that if the state were to approve a smoking tax, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he said. “If we had a smoking tax, there would be $400 million coming in to the tax treasury.”