MSU considers several options for deciding school budget cuts

Decisions to possibly cut campus programs and departments were made with more things in mind than the potential savings of millions of dollars, university officials said.

Provost Kim Wilcox said he considered pages of data, none of which was more important than the others.

“This is not just about cost savings in individual programs,” he said. “Data including numbers of student majors, credit hours, research dollars, research dollars per square foot, research dollars per faculty member, numbers of faculty, numbers of graduate students (were considered).”

Wilcox announced the possible cuts Friday at the MSU Board of Trustees meeting. The departments of Communicative Sciences and Disorders and Geological Sciences were included in the recommended cuts, as well as 30 additional majors, specializations and programs.

Total cost savings that would result from cutting the recommended programs and departments have not yet been established, Wilcox said.

“We’re trying to work on some kind of composite estimate for all of this, but we’re a long way from that right now,” he said.

During the next two years, MSU operating unit budgets will be cut by approximately $50 million, or 10 percent. Approximately 87 percent of the general fund budget cuts will be in funded positions. The remaining 13 percent in reductions will come from cuts to spending on services, supplies and equipment.

Almost 600 funded positions within the university are expected to be affected. Layoffs will eliminate 19 percent of the positions, while 45 percent will represent positions that will purposefully go unfilled and 36 percent will represent not reappointing fixed-term employees.

The College of Natural Science, which holds the Department of Geological Sciences, has a budget of about $57 million and will have to cut between $7 million and $8 million, said R. James Kirkpatrick, the college’s dean.

The college considered each department’s program quality, strength of vision, student demand and adherence to the college’s mission, as well as the amount of external research funds the department generates, the number of majors and the number of graduate students, he said.

“(Geological sciences’) performance in many of those metrics was not as good as other units,” he said.

Potential job losses within the College of Natural Sciences still are unclear, Kirkpatrick said.

Cuts to retailing and the Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders are moves the College of Communication Arts and Sciences must make, said Pamela Whitten, dean of the college.

Retailing is the smallest unit in the college and enrollment has declined significantly, Whitten said in an e-mail.

“The Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders will be closed eventually to save administrative overhead costs,” she said. “The CSD graduate degrees will be relocated to the Department of Communication.”

Christopher Brown, dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine, said the Veterinary Technology Program cut was one of 15-20 cuts the college proposed to Wilcox. He said it was recommended to be cut partly because there are similar programs elsewhere in Michigan.

If potential cuts presented to Wilcox are approved, the college could meet its goal of cutting $3-4 million during the next two to three years, Brown said.

Wilcox said the majority of faculty affected by the possible cuts would move to different areas on campus.