Because the university’s faculty e-mail lists are incomplete, below is the complete text of President Judy Genshaft’s e-mail yesterday on the budget situation:
Dear Colleagues,
A week ago, we completed an exciting week of commencement ceremonies that remind all us why we’re here. Fantastic graduates, supported by fantastic faculty.
At the same time, the Florida Legislature completed the state’s budget and sent it to the governor for his decisions and signature. The budget reflects lowered revenues for Florida’s state government and therefore a shortfall in state Education and General (E&G) funding. For USF, this means our strategic budget planning continues with the urgency to have a balanced budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2008.
Our plan is to present our budget proposal to the USF Board of Trustees next week, on Wednesday, May 21st. USF will not make final decisions until we have presented the plan to faculty, staff and student leadership, and then to the BOT.
Compared to July 1, 2007, USF on July 1, 2008 will have taken a 10.6% cut in its General Revenue, and can anticipate mid-year cuts in 2008-2009 because state revenue projections continue to fall. That means our cut is more than $35 million, and will likely get worse.
As you know, I asked the vice presidents to plan for an overall 15% cut and strategic redistribution over two fiscal years — the current fiscal year and the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2008. That projection of a 15% cut over two years remains on target.
Given this challenge, 2008-2009 will be a year in which our budget is designed to closely support our mission and strategic plan.
Thank you again for your contributions to the university, and to the spectacular results we saw in our graduates last week. I look forward to working with you to strengthen the university by focusing on its strategic plan.
Judy Genshaft
President
On the very last afternoon of the legislative session (May 2), I received an analysis of USF’s last five audited financial statements, and the general picture is that USF is financially healthy, among the healthiest of Florida’s public universities. State support for higher education in Florida is falling, but different colleges and universities have a broad range of abilities to absorb the cuts this year. USF is relatively well-positioned to insulate the central academic mission. As a result, USF’s administration and Trustees have a choice of whether to put the university on a glide path towards a different revenues structure or to let the academics crash.