 But with the academic year in full swing, the state must now start
cutting away at the millions of dollars the universities have billed
the state for this budget year.Without timely reimbursements,
university administrators and boards of trustees are having to
execute cost-cutting measures to free up money.
Southern Illinois University President Glenn Poshard said his
university's board of trustees has approved of implementing up to
six furlough days throughout the university system.
The state will finish paying off reimbursement payments for the
last budget year in December but would then have to start on more
than $100 million in reimbursement payments for this budget year.
"We’re backing up people ourselves that we owe money to -- the
vendors that do business with the university and so on -- we're
stacking them out to 60 days or 90 days or however soon we can pay.
And that has reverberations throughout the entire economy," Poshard
said.
Poshard added that he and SIU Carbondale Chancellor Rita Cheng
have contacted public employee unions about the possibility of
unpaid furlough days.
Public employee unions would have to approve of the furloughs
before they could be implemented. Poshard did not indicate a
deadline for finalizing the unpaid days.
Many of the universities have instituted other measures to try to
avoid furloughs, including budget cuts, holds on new hires and
restrictions on expensive travel expenditures.
Dan Layzell, vice president of finance with Illinois State
University, said the state has paid off all but $400,000 from the
$85.1 million appropriated to the university last budget year.
He said the state is far overshooting reimbursement deadlines
typically associated with each budget year and that ISU has had to
compensate.
"It's more in terms of ... finding a predictable schedule in
which we can receive payments from the state, regardless of what the
fiscal year is," he said.
Darcie Shinberger, a spokeswoman for Western Illinois University,
said university administrators have asked all college heads to slice
3.5 percent from their annual budget for this budget year.
WIU administrators are hoping that move, along with other
measures, will be enough to avoid layoffs and furloughs.
"It's certainly unsettling when we ... look ahead and not know if
we're going to be reimbursed this week, next month, in six months,"
she said.
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Brad Hoey, a spokesman for Northern Illinois University, said
administrators have made similar cost-cutting measures across each
of its colleges.
"It's hard to predict what the future holds. Nobody's in a good
situation, but we may be a little bit more prepared for this
situation because of our experience," he said.
Late last budget year, lawmakers passed a borrowing measure that
helped public universities such as Southern Illinois University meet
payroll obligations.
Neither ISU nor WIU ended up implementing borrowing for the last
budget year to free up cash. But Layzell and Shinberger both said
the campuses were leaving the option open for this budget year.
Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed a 1-percentage-point income tax
increase to raise revenue for education, but that proposal has
stalled in the General Assembly.
Illinois lawmakers may debate the tax increase proposal in
November, when they typically consider the governor's vetoes.
Poshard, a supporter of a tax increase, said higher education
funding has been slipping downward for years.
"I would love to see us not be in a position where we have to
raise taxes or didn't have to make deep cuts, ... but I don't think
this is a short-range problem. I think it's going to take a number
of years for the state to dig out of ... the situation that it's
in," he said.
[Illinois
Statehouse News; By KEVIN LEE]
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