Jordan Cuddemi
Equinox Staff
After budget bills HB 1 and 2 passed the House of Representatives on Wednesday, March 30, the fear of cutting the University System of New Hampshire’s (USNH) $100 million budget nearly in half lingers in the minds of faculty, staff, and students at Keene State College.
“We all knew something was coming so we have been practicing 20 to 25 percent cuts,” Program Coordinator of Academic Affairs, Kim Schmidl-Gagne said. “But when it is double that, you just can’t double what you have been looking at because it becomes too much.”
“That much of a budget cut will impact everything,” Schmidl-Gagne said.
The proposed 45 percent cut to higher education could mean anything from faculty and staff layoffs, which in turn would impact class size, to increased tuition with reduced services.
Schmidl-Gagne said determining the criteria is being considered for personnel who would be impacted if cuts had to be made. “I think we are starting to find out what are the criteria we are going to use,” Schmidl-Gagne said. “How do we make sure we consider our mission, liability issues and work load,” Schmidl-Gagne said.
At KSC, the adjunct and tenure tract professors are unionized and staff is not, said Schmidl-Gagne. There are two types of staff, Professional Administrative and Technical Staff (PAT), which are positions with benefits, and Operating Staff, which are positions without benefits.
Schmidl-Gagne said, “I don’t think that we know” how many cuts will be made and where those cuts will come from.
Schmidle-Gagne said a trickle down effect occurs with teacher layoffs. When there are increased caps on class size and under enrolled classes are eliminated, fewer teachers are needed, Schmidl-Gagne said.
With that said, increasing class size could render difficulties. “Certain rooms can only hold so many students,” Schmidl-Gagne said. “We are designed to have that close contact with students so there are simply limitations to the number of people in each room.” Schmidl-Gagne explained it is different to add five people to a lecture class than to add five people to a lab.
According to the March 29, 2010 Mercer report, one area the USNH is evaluating is the total compensation packets of benefited employees, which includes cash compensation, health and welfare, and retirement benefits. “The board of trustees is looking to save eight million in employee benefits across the system,” Schmidl-Gagne said.
Vice President of Student Affairs, Andy Robinson said, “Trustees are trying to cut the bottom line of the whole system.”
“There are enough employees that a little bit of a cut saves a substantial amount of money,” Robinson said. “Even with a little cut I think our benefits package is a fairly generous package.”
In addition to cutting the bottom line of benefit packages, Robinson said there is also a baseline set to cut supplies by 5 percent.
As far as tuition increases go, Robinson said, “We still need to have the discussion about how the auxiliaries can help.” Auxiliaries are areas that directly rely on student fees, Robinson said. Auxiliaries on campus would include, “All functions of the Student Center, all functions of residential life, dining services; all direct pay kinds of things.”
“It seems like there are a number of possibilities. Could we decrease student fees to offset tuition?” Robinson said. However, this would impact clubs and organizations, Robinson said.
“We don’t want students to have to pay the extra money so cutting services may be a better alternative to raising fees and tuition.”
Despite the stress that comes with dispersing cuts throughout the system, Robinson said no one is pointing fingers. “We are all in this together.”
KSC Economics Professor and Tenure Faculty Union Head, Patrick Dolenc said, “We have a fairly special culture here. It would be really tragic to let this sabotage that.”
KSC values shared governance, Dolenc said. “I think our president is really focused on community as a group.”
Robinson said, “The goal is to have the least amount of impact on students and academic quality.”
Schmidl-Gagne said, “The senate won’t vote until the end of June and our budget cycle starts July 1 so we have to get everything in place because that turn around point will be so tight.”
Jordan Cuddemi can be contacted at jcuddemi@keeneequinox.com
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