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Statement on State Spending Cuts
The State's leadership has asked all agencies, including
higher education, to take immediate action to identify ways to cut
spending in our current operations. These are extraordinary measures
for extraordinary times, and The University of Texas System will
do its part to identify savings that contribute to the solution
to these economic challenges. We will work closely with all 15 of
our institutions to develop a system-wide plan by Feb. 6 that details
what can be done by the U.T. System to contribute to the state's
fiscal recovery. Every effort will be made to continue delivering
essential and vital education, research, and health care services
to the State that will see us through these tough times.
The Numbers:
General Revenue for
U.T. Institutions for FY 2003 (less 7%)
(document in PDF format)
Questions & Answers:
| Q: How much would be cut from the U.T. System
budget to meet a mandated 7 percent reduction? |
| A: A 7 percent reduction in annualized state
appropriations of $1.49 billion to our institutions for the current
fiscal year would amount to an estimated $104.3 million. |
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| Q: What will the impact of the reductions be? |
| A: We have asked our campuses to submit
detailed plans that meet the mandate of an overall reduction of
7 percent. Every effort will be made to identify the specific
and appropriate actions that will be taken on each campus and
System-wide. Our instructions to presidents stress that reducing
direct services is a "last option" for consideration.
It would be premature at this time to speculate on specific actions
or impacts until we have had the opportunity to discuss and review
their proposals and to incorporate them into a final plan for
submission to the Governor and to the Legislature. |
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| Q: How much will each campus be affected by
these cuts? Will this be an evenly distributed, across-the-board
reduction of 7 percent for each campus? |
| A: We will submit a System-wide plan to
meet the objective of a 7 percent reduction in the total of state
revenues allocated to our individual campuses. Those reductions
will be spread across all 15 campuses - but may affect each campus
differently. This is a collective effort to achieve these savings,
not an individual one. |
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| Q: Are you anticipating any other actions such
as personnel layoffs, pay cuts, hiring freezes, etc? |
| A: It is too early to tell what actions
will be necessary. Our first step is to ask the campus presidents
how they would meet a mandated reduction and assess the impact
it would have on their campus. We will collect that information
and fine-tune it until we have a plan that we can put in place
and administer by Feb. 6. There will be tough choices to make,
at the campus and at the System level, but these are choices that
are absolutely necessary to maintaining a fiscally sound state
government. I intend to give our component campus presidents maximum
flexibility in determining where reductions are to be made consistent
with our obligations to the state and to the people of Texas.
My first priority is to maintain the academic and health care
programs already in place and serving Texas students and patients
at each of our institutions. Beyond that, we will look at every
opportunity to achieve additional efficiencies in operations,
cut expenditures, defer costs, and many other options available
to us. This is the beginning of a very difficult process of assessment
for us and for the state, as we grapple with the impacts of the
economy on the current fiscal year and the upcoming biennium.
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| Q: What is the current budget for U.T. System
(FY 2003)? |
| A: TOTAL BUDGET: $7.02 billion
(22.1 percent of total is state General Revenue) |
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