The Missouri Executive Budget was released for the 2012 fiscal year June 10 announcing that, among other programs, funding for higher education would be significantly cut causing the UM System to discuss ways of cutting costs on campus in the future school years.
According to the budget, the system will receive about $4.37 million less than what was appropriated in 2011 based on Gov. Jay Nixon’s recommendations. It was up to the system administration where to cut funds and it has been decided that the majority of cuts will be from the Enterprise Investment Program, a program created to invest in small businesses in order to enhance many campus technologies.
Funding for the program will drop from $5 million to $2.8 million.
“While the university will be able to fulfill its commitment for the first round of pending investments in early-stage companies, the cut will adversely affect future funding of collaborative ventures among the university, entrepreneurs and businesses,” Interim System President Steve Owens said in a news release.
Each of the system’s administration, its four campuses and MU Extension will deal with the cuts on a proportional basis the best way that they see fit. These groups will produce the other half of the reduction not covered by the Enterprise Investment Program cuts.
During June’s Board of Curators meeting, ways of dealing with the budget cuts were discussed. The potential of capping freshmen enrollment in the future was brought up, but has since been dismissed.
“We are not planning on capping the number of freshmen admitted to MU,” Vice Provost for Enrollment Services Ann Korschgen said.
Owens said the idea of capping enrollment isn’t completely out of the picture for the future.
It was agreed upon that though the state might be cutting funding for the system, the students and faculty should not have to suffer for it.
“We cannot continue to take more and more students while state support declines,” Owens said. “Without adequate resources, the quality of our academic and research programs is at risk.”
Student fee surcharges and reduction in financial aid was also over passed along with decreasing employee salaries.
“We continue to strive to keep education affordable and I do not believe that students should bear the brunt of the latest reduction in state support,” Owens said in a letter. “I do not intend to reduce the 2 percent salary merit pool for employees. We recognize that our faculty and staff are already undercompensated and that we suffer competitively as a result.”
The 2012 budget cuts are in addition to previous government cuts of $8.7 million and $53.2 million cuts made by the system in order to balance the budget.
