University faces additional budget cuts; freezes nonessential spending

John T. Bennett - Editor-in-Chief

Appalachian State University will freeze all unessential spending measures for two weeks after North Carolina lawmakers directed the state-supported institution to slash 4 percent from its operating budget.

Dr. Harvey Durham, vice chancellor for Academic Affairs, said during this spending moratorium the university will only release dollars for measures in which an invoice already exists, to pay utility bills, and to purchase classroom and laboratory equipment.

“Anything it takes to keep the instruction going at the
university … we will continue to [fund] that,” Durham said Thursday at a meeting with college deans department chairs and other faculty members.

Durham said the 4 percent reduction would force university officials to eliminate approximately $3.5 million from the institution’s state-allocated operating budget.

This second round of cuts comes only two weeks after the N.C. General Assembly mandated a 2.3 percent budget reduction for Appalachian State as part of its $14.5 billion state budget package and was deemed necessary by lawmakers to offset a 5 percent decline in state revenue collections. Revenue growth for the first fiscal quarter was $155 million less than governmental projections.

Durham said this latest cut is a one-year surcharge, not a permanent reduction in Appalachian’s annual state allocation, but left the door open to the possibility the General Assembly could remove the temporary tag.

The 4 percent surcharge means the university must slash approximately $3.5 million from its current spending plan, a sum that should return to the school’s coffers July 1, 2002 when the state issues funding allotments to each UNC system institution, said Durham.

Specific instructions have yet to be issued from Raleigh, Durham stressed university administrators will approach this latest budget crunch with the same strategy used in implementing the initial 2.3 percent reduction.

“We are still going try to get out of this without anyone losing his or her job,” Durham told the assembled faculty members.

While university budget-cutters will aim to not terminate any current faculty members, Durham advised departments and colleges to temporarily cease efforts to fill any vacant position they are currently attempting to fill until next fiscal year.

“Unless someone has been hired, [the position] is frozen,” Durham said.

Appalachian State Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs Jane Helm said North Carolina lawmakers have yet to provide state budget operators with any guidelines on how to proceed in executing Wednesday’s 4 percent cut.

“The only thing we have been told is that I will find out on Tuesday how we will go about implementing this 4 percent cut,” said Helm.

Helm said all state budget officers will be in a state of monetary limbo until implementation instructions are handed down from Raleigh.

Durham echoed Helm’s statement by saying university officials were all but left “stumbling in the dark,” in regards to how to implement the 4 percent reduction.

Along with the 4 percent budget reduction, the Gov. Mike Easley and his administration placed all state renovation and repair projects on hold.

Dr. Clyde Robbins, Appalachian State director of design and construction, told The Appalachian in an exclusive interview following the meeting that no project currently underway on the Appalachian campus will be halted as a result of the mandate issued by the Easley administration late Wednesday.

Robbins also stressed the list of projects included in last November’s $82.3 Higher Education bond referendum will be not affected by the hold.

Among the repair and renovation projects that will be put on hold as a result of the Easley administration’s order include improvements to the ventilation systems in Wey Hall and Farthing Auditorium, the fire alarm system in the Administration Building and a new roof officials had intended to add to the Kerr-Scott Building.

Robbins also said the Rivers Street bridges behind Varsity and Broome-Kirk Gymnasiums and a continuation of the mitigation of Boone Creek will also be delayed until the next fiscal year.

The Easley administration order would create future obstacles at Appalachian State University once it is allowed to proceed with the aforementioned projects, a problem that will also plague its15 UNC system sister institutions as well as every state agency, said Robbins.

“If you have to go another year and if you don’t keep working, you get behind,” Robbins said. “And, it costs more that next year to fix those problems than if you started them now. This will affect the whole state infrastructure system."