Regents open to large-scale budget cuts, but unlikely this year

Large-scale budget reductions, such as dropping departments or consolidating programs, must be on the table as Iowa's three regent universities look to trim millions, regent leaders said.

It's unlikely, however, those sorts of big-idea efficiencies can be used to cut budgets this year, due to the short window leaders have to trim nearly $60 million from regent institution budgets, state Board of Regents President David Miles said.

But such reductions can't be ruled out for next year, when the loss of $80 million in one-time federal stimulus money will mean an even tougher budget picture, he said.

“This is a time where everything needs to be on the table,” Miles, of West Des Moines, said. “We need to be considering changes both small and large.”

The regents meet today in Cedar Falls and will hear plans for cutting millions from this year's budgets at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, after a 10 percent across-the-board state cut. Today's discussion likely won't include a lot of talk about large-scale reductions in colleges or departments, Miles said, because university leaders haven't had the time to study and assess such ideas.

The regents urged the university presidents to consider eight budget-cutting measures this year, including layoffs, a tuition surcharge, selling non-essential assets and temporary pay cuts.

But eliminating unnecessary program duplication is worth considering for the longer term, Miles said. UI officials have said they are looking at similar issues internally in updating the strategic plan to focus more on core strengths.

Past suggestions for eliminating duplication have been implemented when the ideas are good, or discarded when the ideas don't work, Regent Bob Downer, of Iowa City, said.

Occasional murmurings that the UI should do away with its College of Engineering is “one of the single worst ideas I've ever heard in my life,” Downer said. There is demand to support engineering at the UI and ISU, and they have different specialties, he said.

But the board should consider what programs are unnecessary, he said. Smaller departments or programs with low enrollment could be areas for efficiency, Downer said. He also likes a model in Maryland where students in the state university system take classes online from another campus if it's not offered at theirs.

UI officials this year ended the bachelor's program in oral health sciences and suspended admissions to graduate programs in German due to limited enrollments.

Internal audits in the past two decades led to the sale of WOI, a television station formerly owned by ISU, and cutting the dental hygiene program at the UI. The Peat Marwick external audit in 1989 resulted in dropping materials engineering and home economics at the UI and home economics and linguistics at UNI.

It seems few universities are at the point of such large-scale reductions now. A recent Chronicle of Higher Education survey and article said the financial meltdown that has caused upheavals in other corners of the economy hasn't changed much about how colleges operate.

“We haven't seen too many colleges eliminating entire departments or closing things down,” Chronicle Senior Writer Goldie Blumenstyk said. “Maybe it's coming.”

Recent years have brought efficiencies in smaller ways, like energy cost reductions, UI Faculty Senate President David Drake said. Faculty are aware larger changes may be on the horizon, the professor of dentistry said.