Higher education across Illinois will have to look elsewhere for emergency funds as the state is unlikely to spend more on universities.
Gov. Pat Quinn said Monday he has done everything he could do in regard to funding higher education.
“They gave me a lump sum budget and I invested as far as we could go,” Quinn said. “At this point it looks like we’ll just have to soldier through and try to get our economy back on track.”
According to the state’s budget website, of the $3.4 billion lump sum appropriated by the General Assembly to the Governor’s Office, $180 million remains unallocated as of July 1.
Of the projects funded through the lump sum appropriations, the Board of Higher Education received only $27 million. The Department of Human Services received the most money, at $1.19 billion, while the Department of Healthcare and Family Services received $1 billion.
SIUC Chancellor Rita Cheng said the university had already started to prepare a budget for the fiscal year 2011 based on the $122.1 million in state appropriations given to the SIU last year. However, she said the appropriations are likely to be $114.5 million due to the loss of the 7 percent federal stimulus money.
Cheng said she has asked all university units to reduce their budgets next year by an average of 4 percent. Layoffs and furloughs remain a last minute choice.
SIU is still waiting for more than $80 million in state appropriations for the FY 2010, with a deadline for money to be given to universities by the end of December.
SIU President Glenn Poshard said SIU would be able to make it to mid-October, but would have to look at furloughs and layoffs if more money does not come the university’s way.
Illinois has given all state universities the opportunity to borrow money to replace what is owed to universities in appropriations by September, but Poshard has said borrowing money would only be used in a last case scenario.
Moody’s Investors Service lowered Illinois’ credit rate in June to A1, which matches California as the lowest-rated state. Poshard said this would result in the university facing interest rates on money borrowed as high as 3.5 percent to 4 percent — which would mean millions more the university would have to pay back.
“We’re going to do whatever we can to not have to resort to borrowing money,” he said. “We need to wait for the state to give us the money that we are owed.”