Dive Brief:
- The University of Connecticut expects a $70 million deficit in fiscal year 2025, prompting plans for the state flagship to enact widespread budget cuts and ask lawmakers for additional funding.
- In a recent presentation, the university proposed reducing operating support budgets for its academic units and the administration by 15% over the next five years. The flagship would start with a 3% cut in fiscal 2025, amounting to about $18 million.
- UConn is also asking the state for an additional $47.3 million for the upcoming fiscal year. That amount would keep state support level with the current fiscal year, according to university officials.
Dive Insight:
During the presentation shared with the university community this week, Jeff Geoghegan, UConn’s chief financial officer, cited two primary causes of the upcoming deficit.
For one, the state’s total appropriations to the university will fall $47.3 million from fiscal 2024 to fiscal 2025 as federal pandemic relief funding runs dry. Additionally, UConn used $16.1 million in one-time funds to plug holes in its current year budget, Geoghegan said.
Along with budget cuts, UConn officials shared plans to increase revenue and potentially draw down one-time funds from the endowment and its foundation.
However, faculty at UConn have lambasted the budget cuts. In an open letter, faculty said the proposed cuts will “dramatically degrade UConn’s central mission of teaching and research excellence, and its standing as a world-class institution of higher education.”
To make the cuts, the university will have to eliminate key instructor jobs and educational support, the faculty argued. They voiced concerns that the reductions would lead to dramatically larger class sizes, scaled-back labs and undergraduate research programs, falling graduation rates, and an exodus of faculty looking for better positions.
“These repercussions are nothing short of catastrophic,” the letter contends. As of Wednesday afternoon, it had garnered more than 300 signatures.
During a virtual town hall Wednesday, UConn Provost Anne D’Alleva said officials were concerned about how the plans would impact employees and students.
“This is why it’s important for us to prioritize,” D’Alleva said. “We can’t do everything or be all things to all people.”
D’Alleva also noted that UConn isn’t the only higher education facing these kinds of issues, pointing to similar budget challenges at Penn State and the City University of New York system.
In their letter, faculty also demanded updates on the university’s negotiations with state lawmakers for more money.
However, it’s far from certain that state lawmakers will grant UConn’s request for more funding.
“There are hundreds of millions of dollars in funding requests before the Legislature, so it’s uncertain what will happen next session,” Joann Lombardo, the university’s senior director for governmental relations, said during the town hall Wednesday. “We’ll continue to advocate, as we always do, for the resources we need.”
If lawmakers don’t approve the funding, the university could take several steps, UConn President Radenka Maric said. That could include hiring freezes to slow down spending and reductions in travel, though Maric noted that officials can’t predict those types of decisions at this point.
Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat, is expected to unveil his budget adjustment proposal in early February, Lombardo said in the video presentation.
Chris Collibee, the governor’s budget spokesperson, said via email Wednesday that Connecticut has allocated over $1 billion to help its public higher education institutions transition from one-time pandemic relief money to sustainable levels of state funding.
“One-time federal funding was never intended to result in increased ongoing state support, it was intended to create a bridge to facilitate financial stability during the pandemic. Any increase in state support would have to fit into a balanced budget that complies with the fiscal guardrails,” Collibee said.
Collibee added that the university has several ways to manage its costs or increase revenue without additional state support.
“We encourage UConn and UConn Health to implement strategies that enable them to adapt to the elimination of the federal funds,” Collibee said.
