Hiring decreases, tuition increases: Faculty airs concerns over KU's budget cuts

CORRECTION: The original version of this story about the University Kansas budget incorrectly described some of the details of recent cuts. The total cut is $20 million, which is 5.87 percent spread across central administration and each unit. The school is investing more in deferred maintenance to ensure money is available to take care of buildings down the road, and there are no plans to cut faculty.

The upcoming budget cuts at the University of Kansas will prevent the school from facing a deficit of about $87 million by fiscal year 2023, interim provost Carl Lejuez said on June 6. He spoke in Lawrence at what he said would be one of many town halls about the budgetary changes.

KU announced on May 29 that it will cut $20 million from its budget, 5.87 percent spread across each department and unit.

The university is already set to use up its central funds for incoming fiscal year 2019, according to the data provided at the town hall and on the provost’s website.

Every spending decision the university has made in the last five fiscal years was “reasonable in a vacuum,” Lejuez said.

But he realized in May, just weeks after becoming interim provost, that the school had already committed to spending money it wasn’t going to have in the next few years because administration had not been using a long-term budget forecast.

Lejuez cited slower increases in revenue, increased expenditures within the past five years and the failure to factor in inflation as additional reasons KU is in its current financial situation. He also said the university based its past budget decisions on best-case scenarios instead of for things “to not go exactly as planned.”

The school is re-evaluating all of its contracts and past spending decisions, Lejuez told the Star. Some previously made spending agreements will be unbreakable, he said, but he has already been in contact with the campus about reconsidering a contract for a software product.

Ron Barrett-Gonzalez, an aerospace engineering professor and member of the University Senate Planning and Resources Committee, was one of many faculty members at the town hall expressing concerns about the cuts.

“Many of them, they’re not appropriate,” he said. “There are lots of other places where waste is going on on this campus and needs to stop, and the first one is the jet.”

KU’s Cessna CJ4 jet costs $1 million a year to operate despite rarely being used to full capacity. The Star reported in January that the Planning and Resources Committee urged the university to sell the jet, which has been in use since 2015. The group had released a report identifying $6.6 million in immediate savings, not counting the $1 million yearly operations cost.

Lejuez said he appreciates that faculty, staff and students are concerned about the university’s future, and the jet is among the things being evaluated.

Barrett-Gonzalez also said the disparity between faculty and administrative salaries is too large.

A student at the town hall asked Lejuez why former chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little, who retired last year, still receives her salary of $510,000. Lejuez said this was the Kansas Board of Regents’ decision.

Electrical engineering and computer science professor James Sterbenz disagreed, saying that getting rid of the “golden parachutes” of Gray-Little and former athletic director Sheahon Zenger would solve 10 percent of the budget problem.

“It’s a cop-out to say the Board of Regents did it,” Sterbenz said. “We can ask for it back.”

Zenger was fired in May but is still on the university's payroll. His contract signed in 2017 said KU would owe him two years' salary, or $1.4 million, for termination without cause.

Raising students’ tuition and making faculty and staff take on more work is unfair, Barrett-Gonzalez told The Star.

“This problem was generated by the administration, fostered by the administration, and it should be solved by the administration,” he said. “It should not be solved by the faculty, staff or students.”

The provost's office spent $11.9 million of its own money on campus buildings in fiscal year 2016, the most expensive of the past five fiscal years. In February 2016, university officials faced the Kansas Legislature to defend the use of out-of-state bonds to pay for the $350 million Central District Development Project. Lawmakers had said the state would be “on the hook” if KU couldn’t pay off the bonds.

The Board of Regents approved the Central District project, which includes new science buildings and student housing, in 2015. The buildings are almost complete and will be open this summer, KU spokeswoman Erinn Barcomb-Peterson said in an email.

Making incremental cuts over multiple years would be more expensive than cutting $20 million in one go, according to the data. Lejuez acknowledged it would be difficult to prepare for any cuts in state funding that might happen over the next few years, but he said there is flexibility in the new budget plan.

“It’s as simple as budgeting with a little bit of a cushion and not assuming the best-case scenario in every single situation,” he said. “It’s moving away from saying, ‘Let’s spend now and hope for the best.’”

Multiple faculty and staff told Lejuez at the town hall that they appreciated his transparency about KU’s finances because they had not seen it from previous administrators. Lejuez told the audience it was important that he be held to his statements and promises.

“If I said something today that I’m not doing, then I should be fired,” he said.

This story was originally published June 17, 2018 at 5:30 AM with the headline "Hiring decreases, tuition increases: Faculty airs concerns over KU's budget cuts."