Due to effective planning and foresight, Mississippi State officials do not expect severe problems due to the statewide budget cuts.
Mike McGrevey, vice president for finance and administration, said university officials have prepared multiple mock budgets based on potential financial scenarios.
He said the university budget will ultimately depend on legislative cuts, President Barack Obama’s stimulus package, the Institutions of Higher Learning and funding from research, among other factors.
“We’re getting plans that are ready to go off the shelf based on what the real budget turns out to be here,” McGrevey said.
MSU President Mark Keenum said in a general faculty meeting the university clearly has financial challenges ahead of it.
“The national recession already has inflicted a lot of pain, and we don’t know yet whether we’ve reached bottom or whether the national and state economy will sink further before the recovery takes hold,” he said.
University Provost Peter Rabideau said given the tremendous amount of uncertainty concerning the state’s budget, the budget planning has been great thus far.
“As you know, the governor has made some budget cuts, and we’re going to have to react to that,” he said. “We’re still a little uncertain as to what budget cuts will look like in the next fiscal year, so we need to be prepared and prudent with our budget at the moment.”
Rabideau said reaching budget goals may result in the rearrangement of some assignments and work loads.
Keenum said minimizing the impact on personnel is a priority when planning the budget.
“Faculty and dedicated staff are the backbone of this institution,” Keenum said. “We won’t cannibalize our most important resource and jeopardize our long-term future for the sake of a quick budget fix.”
While the possibility of salary increases next year are not good, making compensation for faculty and staff competitive within the region will remain a priority, he said.
“We will do what we can,” he said. “A 1 percent salary increase university-wide requires about $2.5 million, and that is a recurring expenditure.”
McGrevey said there is a selective rehiring initiative coinciding with Keenum’s review in order to protect employees.
“There are currently vacant positions, and we don’t want to fill them and then at the end of the review find out that . this job has been eliminated,” he said. “This way it’s really treating people fairly.”
Though authorization to hire 32 new positions has been granted for next year, the university is saving money by only filling critical administrative positions until then, McGrevey said.
“These positions are funded already,” he said. “But in part of trying to deal with the budget reduction, we are slowing the hiring process down, which means there is money there that we can use.”
McGrevey said other areas that factor into the budget include funding for research, student population, policy and maintenance of facilities.
Keenum said whether tuition will be raised depends on funding.
“Obviously, we don’t want to raise tuition, but in the absence of adequate state support, we would be left with no reasonable alternative,” he said.
McGrevey said preventive exercises to deal with cuts are currently being developed to create an effective strategy and implementation plan for June 30.
“[Currently,] $675 million is our budget here, and it has many moving parts,” he said. “It gets big real quick, but we are making sure everything is protected.”
He said the university aims to continue gaining momentum even in times of economic struggle.
“The strategy is to maintain the growth of the university while protecting the quality of the instruction, research, service, the student experience and the people who have committed their lives to serving the students and institution,” he said.