University of Maine officials announced Thursday that they must cut next year’s $242 million budget by $7 million, but will not eliminate any academic programs and will try to avoid layoffs in a bid to have the smallest possible impact on the student body.
“We really do want to minimize the impact on academic and student services,” Orono President Susan Hunter told nearly 200 people gathered in Minsky Recital Hall on the Orono campus.
Almost half of the cuts, $3.2 million, will come from academic affairs, which include all the academic programming, officials said. Other major cuts will include $900,000 in administration and finance and $440,000 from the president’s office.
The announcement comes in the wake of a plan proposed by University of Southern Maine President David Flanagan to eliminate 50 faculty positions and close two academic programs to shave $6 million off that school’s budget gap of $16 million for the next fiscal year. The remaining $10 million will come from administration and staff cuts, to be announced by mid-November, and a plan to reorganize academic programming, to be announced by the end of the year.
Last Monday, during a campaign visit to the University of Maine, Gov. Paul LePage commented on the financial woes of the University.
“The University is going under tough times. Unfreezing the tuition is not an option,” LePage said. “I think it’s more than just asking for money; the University of Maine system has to have a plan.”
LePage added that the jury is still out on the changes that the UMS has been trying to implement, but he believes that the idea of specialized campuses is one that could benefit the system as a whole.
“Instead of teaching the same programs at each campus, they should specialize more,” LePage said.
Hunter touched on this as one of the ways that the university is trying to diversify and that in addition to the proposed cuts, the Orono campus will also make investments in certain areas identified as, “centers of excellence,” such as engineering, marine science and climate change.
Department heads will submit budgets that reflect the proposed cuts by Oct. 22, officials said.
The campus will also know on Oct. 20 how many faculty plan to retire. According to Vice President for Administration and Finance Ryan Low.