Governor Cuts Penn State’s Funding (Again)

Governor’s Reduction

Governor Ed Rendell released the latest of his increasingly drastic budget reductions for the 2009 fiscal year. The governor has now reduced the budget proposal by $2 billion dollars.

Overall, 229 line items would be impacted by the latest round of spending reductions. Compared to the current fiscal year, the Governor has now cut three out of every four line items, totally eliminating 163 of them and reducing another 328.

One of the details in the most recent revision, which was released on Thursday, is that the public-related institutions will not be receiving federal stimulus money, resulting in a loss of $20 million in expected appropriations.

Penn State’s Catastrophe

University spokeswoman Lisa Powers told the Centre Daily Times that the reduction would be “catastrophic” for the university. If the current cuts came into effect for next year, the state aid Penn State receives would be back down to 1996-levels.

Graham Spanier is understandably upset. He has to present to the Board of Trustees on July 10th. Before then, he has to make some pretty big decisions.

He has told us that he does not want to raise tuition any more than normal– roughly 5%. He has also told the faculty that the university had not and hopefully would not need to enact any mass layoffs.

Here’s what he had told the Board back in January.

We do not anticipate resorting to any of the university-wide emergency actions being taken by scores of colleges and universities throughout the nation such as mid-year tuition increases, hiring freezes, mandatory furloughs, pay cuts, travel freezes, liquidation of endowment assets, and loans to meet basic operating needs.

But he knew this kind of situation would finally come, and he probably could have guessed that it would occur during the annual budget impasse. It was fully underway by November, when the state actually asked for $20 million of its 2008 appropriation to be returned to the government.

Watch this story over the next couple of weeks. Something is going to happen. Veblen speculated wondered if Rendell wants some relinquishment of budgetary oversight by the school to the state, but it seems to me something that massive would get overlooked in the push to get the budget passed to prevent furloughs.

http://thorsteinveblen.blogspot.com veblen

Davis, you misunderstood what I wrote. I’m not speculating that it would happen. I simply wondered if it is what Rendell wants

Could this funding problem be resolved by restructuring the governance of the schools and would Spanier and the Board of Trustees be willing to go along with any restructuring? That’s a question an enterprising reporter should ask Rendell and Spanier.

I find it hard to believe that the Board of Trustees and Graham would relinquish any power without a fight. And I don’t think that if it were to happen that it would be a solution to the current problem.
http://thorsteinveblen.blogspot.com veblen

Thanks for the correction.
http://twitter.com/gohome190 Zach L

FUCK ED RENDELL
Matt Smith

Less than a week ago,Big news from Harvard didn’t quite make the mainstream with Iran and the several celebrity deaths occuring. The Harvard endowment was often referred to in Senate and related functions when mentioning the only was severe cuts could be avoided. There is nothing unclear in the statement that “the symbolic import of a large, stable employer like Harvard resorting to such actions surely looms larger”. In the shadow of that is where we find ourselves without the stimulus money.
There’s a good line in Syriana where energy analyst Matt Damon states that “it’s no secret Iran will refuse the snap inspections.”* Therefore some ‘wondering’ over a challenge to the BoT powers would seem to be an uncharacteristically aggressive action with no compelling reason this close to the Governor’s 2nd term ending. Penn State is certainly the best positioned among the state related to outlast a less than concerted effort to impose unilateral reforms amounting to being”under the absolute control of the Commonwealth“.
University Park students ought to be a part of decisions on what can be gone without for now in order to preserve the best parts of the University. If only there was some signaling in regards to what the administration and faculty intend to scaleback, if cooperation is an option or if it will be honestly be nothing. We’ve lost the motivation to act for our own betterment through calling for (from the top of my head) the fountains to run half as much, the landscaping be done in portions, that roads can wait and enough with the new fences, lamps, benches and signage. I wish someone would post some pictures of what has been done on the library lawn.
If we can’t do at least this much, then we do deserve whatever increase comes down. For the admin and faculty, communication of what’s next is at zero percent and creating the Fear that drives our speculation. Harvard cut nearly 300. So what would Atherton do?

*No Rendell and Iran are not equated here.
Dj Ryan

There’s TONS of people working together to get things rolling again. A “spokesperson” for Penn State was quoted in the PGH post-gazette saying that they expected the situation would be resolved sometime soon in the state legislature.

The governor said we were not really a public university anymore. That’s a bunch of bull. sorry. The governor talks about how he doesn’t have enough control, although he himself is a trustee. he appoints several members and several members of his cabinet are trustees. The students at PSU need to bond together and show support for our university and let Gov. Rendell know that we are all being affected by this.
GTWMA

Matt, if the students find out what’s intended to be reduced, please let the faculty know.
Matt Smith

“if the students find out what’s intended to be reduced, please let the faculty know”

I don’t speak for all students any more than do I perceive a homogenous form to the term faculty, which includes our lecturers, associate professors, tenure-track et al that I don’t want to see let go. I hope I’m not wrong to presume that department chairs, administrators, are being emailed with plenty of questions for Old Main. The summer is the time when junior and senior students who can articulate undergraduate concerns have the least access to campus. It would be a disservice to withhold commentary that promotes real university.
GTWMA

All I can say is that I have received zero emails about this.
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GTWMA

The Governor and Secretaries of Education, Agriculture and Environmental Protection are ex-officio members of the Board. The Governor appoints 6 of the 27 voting members of the board. And Penn State gets less than 10% of its total operating budget from state appropriations. Many state universities get almost half of their budget from state appropriations.