State still fumbling for funding
Higher education dollars back on chopping block
By Andrew Flohr-Spence • spencand@mscd.edu

Metro’s state funding is again in question as Colorado scrambles to fill another $400 million projected gap in the state’s 2009-2010 Budget.

July 20 Governor Bill Ritter unveiled a proposal that would remove around $82 million, or around 10 percent, from Colorado Higher Education’s permanent yearly budget, and take one-time stimulus money to fill in the gap. On the table for Metro is a loss of around $5 million, or more than 5 percent of the school’s total budget, that college officials warn could mean vital changes at the college.

“Colorado needs every option we can on the table if we want to deal with the budget crisis,” Ritter spokesman Evan Dreyer said. Cutting the $82 million wasn’t set in stone yet, the governor is applying for an exception to the State Fiscal Recovery Act requirements that a state’s higher education funding be no lower than 2005-2006 levels or forfeit all stimulus money, in order to keep the state’s options open.

Dreyer said that the governor’s office was unsure Colorado would qualify for the exemption, not assuming they would have to use it, but wanted to have the possibility open to them if the state needed it.

“It’s a really big dilemma,” Dreyer said. “We are limited in the way we can budget by constitutional restrains on one side, and Federal requirements on the other.”

The governor’s office would be working with lawmakers in this year’s legislative session to come up with a long term solution to Colorado’s budget woes, Dreyer said, but right now they had to cover the gaps in the short term, “and that may mean tough cuts for everyone, whole departments closed, divisions let go across the state.”

And letting people go is exactly what Metro might have to consider according to spokeswoman Cathy Lucas.

“Around 100 positions is the area we’d be looking at to cover those kinds of cuts,” said Lucas, however, that number was according to an average faculty-staff amount of pay and no plan for such action had yet been made. Lucas said the college has few choices other than faculty and staff, with the cuts coming so soon before the year begins and after already enacting all three tiers of the reduction plan for the previous budget cuts.

The problem presented by the governor’s proposal to basically trade the budgeted money for Federal Stimulus money, Lucas said, is that in two years that money runs out. Full-time faculty and staff cannot be hired with the money, only freelance teachers or educational ‘consultants,’ something the president’s office believes would affect the quality of education at Metro. “It creates a difficult situation,” Lucas said.

And Colorado’s Higher Education has had a difficult year.

Following news that Colorado’s budget was heading for a deficit because of the financial crisis, Governor Ritter announced in October 2008 a state-wide spending freeze. Since then, Metro has attempted to save money, not made unnecessary hires or made any unnecessary equipment purchases, absorbing the money was asked to give back from the pre-crash state budget. President Stephen Jordan’s office came up with a three-level contingency plan concerning possible cuts to be made if the state’s budget dropped more.

In January when a further revised state budget was released showing Colorado with a more than one billion dollar deficit, it became clear Metro would need enact the worse-case scenario, all three levels, or “tiers,” of Jordan’s plan.

In April, the budget outlook fell off a cliff for Metro, when for a week the state more than halved the total higher-education budget, but then things got better again, when legislators moved away from that idea and settled on a lesser number: $152 million would be cut from higher education’s previous budget of around $800 million, a nearly 20 percent total loss. Metro’s share was around $5 million. And then came July’s forecast and another $400 million hole in the state budget.The governor and state lawmakers are now working out what to do.

Lucas said Metro’s president and Board of Trustees would be working in the next months to find a solution, as soon as they knew the numbers from the state they were working with. In the meantime, Lucas said, it was business as usual.

Enrollment continues to climb — current projections are for around a 6 percent increase for this fall, just one aspect of Metro, among many others, that might soon be slimmed back.

“We’ll need to look at programs including staff and initiatives that would become priority versus ones to put on hold or eliminated,” Lucas said. “We are exploring strategies to cap enrollment that would help address enrollment management and student retention at the same time.”