Slow economy prompts College cuts

The financial forecast for Arts & Sciences is dreary with patches of optimism.

Through a series of budget cuts meted out to all state agencies, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner is attempting to compensate for a statewide revenue shortfall that exceeds $6 billion for the biennium that began July 1. Public colleges and universities across the Commonwealth are feeling the effects.

Arts & Sciences has made an initial round of cuts totaling $3.2 million for the current fiscal year. A second wave of budget reductions was under negotiation at press time, and more tightening is anticipated after the General Assembly adopts a new balanced budget for the state this winter.

In making decisions about how to respond, Arts & Sciences has moved to protect the jobs of faculty and staff and to shield students as much as possible. As a result, there have been no layoffs, but most faculty and staff positions vacant since last fall have gone unfilled, operating budgets have been trimmed and travel monies eliminated.

Because of the hiring freeze and the normal cycle of retirements and resignations, many faculty positions at the College are vacant. Temporary instructors, many of whom are U.Va.-trained graduate students delaying their move to post-doctoral positions, are filling the gaps for now. Some of their funding comes from private donors.

But not all the financial news is bad. The severity of the fiscal crisis has prompted the state to restore the Board of Visitors’ authority to set tuition rates. Accordingly, in-state tuition rates (and corresponding amounts of need-based financial aid) will begin to rise with the spring semester, slowly replacing monies that once came from the state’s coffers.

Similarly, the soft economy makes borrowing for capital projects especially attractive — so much so that Virginia voters chose in November to authorize an $846 million general obligation bond issuance for higher education. More than $68 million of that will come to U.Va., with $14.3 million slated for the South Lawn Project, $5.7 million for renovations of the Gilmer Hall teaching laboratories used by biology and psychology and $4.6 million to renovate Fayerweather Hall for art history.