Va. legislators ease cuts to VCU, education budgets
Earlier this month governor McAuliffe announced budget reductions that will directly affect Virginia higher education. At the VCU Board of Visitors meeting last week President Rao said the losses won’t be as significant as originally expected.
Matt Leonard
Online Content Editor
Earlier this month governor Terry McAuliffe announced budget reductions that will directly affect Virginia higher education. At the VCU Board of Visitors meeting last week President Michael Rao said the losses won’t be as significant as originally expected.
When McAuliffe unexpectedly called for statewide budget cuts of 5 percent this year and 7 percent next year, VCU scrambled to reallocate resources and create a new budget in the midst of the fiscal year.
“I do have relatively better news this week,” Rao said as he began his report for the board, stating that cuts have been lessened to 3.3 percent for this year with a similar cut in place for next year.
The originally announced decrease in state funding meant VCU would lose over $8 million. The new cuts add up to about $5.4 million each year, according to the vice president of finance Bill Decatur.
VCU was still required to submit budget plans for 5 and 7 percent cuts when budgets were due on Sep. 19, as originally mandated by the governor, however.
Rao said the news comes after “some very thoughtful deliberation between legislators and staff members.”
Virginia legislators approved these changes on Sep. 18 with bipartisan agreement on the amended budget.
VCU will likely experience a two percent bump in tuition next year, but Rao remains conscience of the student loan debt problems that plague many students.
“(I) want to make sure that burdens don’t get shifted (to students),” he said.
Decatur spoke to the board about VCU’s strategy for dealing with these cuts saying they would be tapping into one-time resources such as vacancy savings. These reallocations cover two million dollars of cuts.
“We intend to be very strategic,” Decatur said of the cuts. “And make sure we are picking those reductions from low priority activities while we invest in our high priority goals.”
To combat the government funding shortfalls VCU is working to implement a new budget model and run it alongside the current system within three years.
Decatur said budget cuts, the economic climate and tuition restrictions have combined to render the current model insufficient.
“(The new budget model) marries responsibility and accountability for financial performance,” he said.
The committee creating the new budget model is co-chaired by Decatur and the interim provost John Wiencek.
The committee’s website states they are still working on the “strategic direction” for the new model and they are awaiting “tactical recommendations.”
One of the stated goals of the new budget model is to “create structures that incentivize revenue generation.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story ran misspellings of Bill Decatur and John Wiencek’s names.
