University of Alaska regents postpone 'financial-exigency' decision
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[July 16, 2019]
By Yereth Rosen
ANCHORAGE (Reuters) - Leaders of the
University of Alaska, facing a 41% cut in state funding by the governor,
on Monday postponed a decision to declare the academic equivalent of
bankruptcy reorganization until the end of the month.
The university’s board of regents, convened in an emergency session,
decided to wait for two more weeks to decide on whether to declare
so-called financial exigency, which would allow rapid firing of
employees, including tenured professors, and closure of programs and
possibly entire campuses.
Regents said they wanted to see if the state legislature could return
some of the money that Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy cut in a series of
drastic line-item vetoes.
One state lawmaker attending the meeting was moved to tears over the
university’s plight, calling it a “travesty.”
“This should have never happened,” said state Sen. Click Bishop, a
Fairbanks Republican. “I’m not done, and we’re going to turn this
situation around.”
The University of Alaska, with campuses in Fairbanks, Anchorage and
Juneau, is known for its Arctic, climate, geophysical, oceans and health
programs.
Regents said the funding vetoes, made to a state budget in surplus, were
shocking.
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“This situation is really unprecedented and it’s difficult for
everybody,” said regents chairman John Davies. “To our students, we
will do our best to maintain classes.”
University President Jim Johnsen said he fears the governor will
block any new legislative funding, as there were not enough votes
last week to override his June 28 vetoes.
The governor now has “a position of pretty substantial strength,”
Johnsen told the regents.
Dunleavy, in an Anchorage news conference held at the same time as
the regents’ meeting, defended his vetoes of state spending on the
university and other programs.
“Quite honestly I don’t think that my actions in following the
constitution, in terms of a veto process, in trying to put together
a budget that is going to be sustainable, is going to end up being a
grounds for recall,” he said.
(Reporting by Yereth Rosen in Anchorage; Editing by Dan Whitcomb in
Los Angeles and Michael Perry)
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