Just days after state park closures and layoffs, now funding for higher education is on the chopping block.
Leaders at public universities in the state of llinois are facing the loss of state funds in the coming year.
Last week, the Blagojevich administration asked Illinois' universities to place 2.5 percent of their budgets in reserves. That basically means the state may or *may not* come through with the money and schools need to plan for it. Those cuts mean $35 million dollars in budget losses for four-year universities.
Considering the economic climate and state budget woes, you could say this news came as no surprise to Western Illinois University President Al Goldfarb. But surprise or not, he says these cuts will hurt. Western will lose about 1.5 million dollars and although he can cover some of the losses out of the school's limited reserves, it puts the school in a precarious position.
Goldfarb said, "My greatest fear is that we have a major deferred maintenance problem on campus and if we do we will have to evaluate the entire budget to try and figure out how to handle that emergency."
One example of what can happen is here at Browne Hall. Pipes are leaking into practice rooms for music students and there may not be any money to cover the repairs.
How will this impact students?
Goldfarb said, "Clearly students work, live and study in our academic buildings and the less work we do on those buildings, the less appropriate those environments are. I think there will be clear impacts for our students."
Although Goldfarb says repairs and maintenance to campus buildings as well as equipment purchases have to be put on hold, the education students get here will not change. He says Western is proud of its low student to faculty ratio and that means all faculty positions will be filled. Other staff positions will be heavily examined before they are replaced.
Increases to tuition are also being considered for new students. But that's not a problem current students need to worry about. Western guarantees it's frozen tuition rates for current students no matter the economic climate outside the campus.
We caught up with State Senator John Sullivan and Representative Rich Myers to get their take on the budget crisis.
Will this cripple universities in the area?
Sen. Sullivan said, "Basically Universities did get a slight increase in funding for the fiscal year that we're in. Now the Governor is asking them to put in reserve the amount they got for an increase. Obviously they already spent that money. They have ongoing costs and fees that are going up."
Rep. Rich Myers said, "It does put a hardship on them in trying to meet their needs but they do have access to other funds. Of course primary one is income funds arrived at through tuition and fees. If we have to rely less on the state money because we don't have it, then they have to rely more on income."
Sen. Sullivan added, "We're in for a difficult time here. We've gone through tough times and we're going to have tough times ahead."
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