Board of Trustees to discuss Mich. budget's impact on MSU

The MSU Board of Trustees might have a lot to talk about today when they participate in a conference call to discuss the state budget’s impact on MSU with other university officials.

Trustee Melanie Foster said the call is important as state legislators make decisions that will impact MSU.

“We have a better idea of the economic impact of the state budget,” Foster said.

The call partly will serve as an update to the board between meetings, as the next one won’t be held until Oct. 30, Secretary of the Board of Trustees Bill Beekman said.

“With the distance in between the meetings and with things at the Capitol changing … we wanted to have a placeholder for a time when we might be able to brief the board on where things were at with the state budget and how we were handling it,” Beekman said.

Along with members of the board, Provost Kim Wilcox, President Lou Anna K. Simon and Vice President for Finance and Operations Fred Poston might participate in the call, Beekman said.

The Michigan Promise Scholarship and tuition could be discussed in light of the state budget, university spokesman Kent Cassella said in an e-mail.

“If the state acts, we can then brief the board on what that means to MSU as best we know it … from Michigan Promise grants, to other financial aid, to tuition, to MSU budget reductions,” he said.

Board members also will receive officials’ reports of happenings at the Capitol, Trustee Colleen McNamara said.

“It’s all about the budget,” McNamara said. “I think we’re going to be getting a report from the administration about what happened in the Legislature in terms of our revenue.”

Depending how much federal stimulus money MSU receives, some of it might be used as scholarship money to aid students who would be affected by cutting the Promise, Beekman said.

“If the state doesn’t give us that money or depending on how much stimulus money the state gives us … we would then in all likelihood use some of our stimulus money, perhaps, in support of folks who lost scholarship money,” he said.

No decisions will be made during the conference call, Cassella said.

“Because it is merely a board briefing and not a public meeting, there would obviously be no action, simply briefing the board,” he said.

The board might use information presented during today’s call to better review issues during their meeting at the end of October, Beekman said.

Decisions could be made in late October or at the board’s December meeting, he said.