State revenues falling; belt-tightening ahead

State tax revenues for education were down $43.8 million in October compared to the same month last year, and Alabama Gov. Bob Riley said this week’s passage of Amendment One likely will not be enough to stave off budget cuts in the coming months.

Alabama voters approved the constitutional amendment Tuesday, raising the ceiling on the amount the state can borrow from the Alabama Trust Fund to forestall deep cuts to the education and general fund budgets. Though the ceiling will now be $625 million, Riley told the Associated Press that won’t cover the shortfall and he expects a hiring freeze and other budget-cutting measures for state agencies.

For Auburn Montgomery, which already suffered a 9.62 percent cut in state funding this fiscal year, the prospect of additional cuts already has Chancellor John Veres and his vice chancellors looking for additional ways to reduce spending without damaging the university’s academic quality or services to students.

“Auburn Montgomery will survive these cuts, but we will have to tighten our belts even more,” Veres said. “The entire AUM family must pull together and look for ways to be frugal until the economy makes an upturn.”

Just what will be cut and how soon depends largely on the governor, who has the authority to prorate state appropriations in order to keep the state from running a deficit. Although he said this week budget cuts are likely, he did not indicate when they might begin.

The university already has cut some expenditures by reallocating responsibilities and eliminating a handful of positions, including the office of event management, Web manager and the office of vice chancellor for administrative services. It also moved the campus mailroom back on campus.

In addition, perhaps for the first time, AUM’s budget cuts were not uniform. Non-academic units took the biggest budget hits in order to protect the academic programs, Veres said. Among the cuts:

• Outreach – 10 percent
• Athletics – 9.18 percent
• Financial Affairs – 7.78 percent
• Advancement – 4.18 percent
• Academic Affairs – 2.23 percent

To bring in additional revenue, starting this fall the university has: raised tuition; stepped up recruitment of international students, who pay higher tuition than in-state students; launched the Informatics Institute, which is expected both to bring in significant research funding and to attract new graduate students; and created the Seamless Admission program, which has netted about $220,000.

Veres said the focus has been and will continue to be on running the university more efficiently and creating new programs that will grow enrollment. He is encouraging faculty members to propose new programs that will keep AUM on the cutting edge.

“We have been able to weather the cuts to date and have not eliminated many positions,” Veres said. “We have been fortunate. The University of Alabama announced it was eliminating 300 jobs because of the state cuts.