An informative source pertaining to the budget crisis visited the Student Government Association at Tuesday night’s meeting.President Bob Bell shared his knowledge of the current situation and what he, personally, foresees happening during the next few months.
“Tech has been asked to submit two budget scenarios,” said Bell.
Scenario one involves the cutting of $5.7 million in operating budget. Scenario two would cut $8.6 million.
With the large amount of cuts Bell said there could be hundreds of job losses at Tech.
“This is without a doubt the worst budget in 32 years,” said Bell.
Bell has been at Tech for 32 years and ventured to say the budget may never have been worse.
Concerned students and SGA members were given an opportunity to ask questions after the brief overview Bell provided.
Jordan Iwanyszn, SGA Senator for the College of Arts and Sciences, wanted to know “what colleges will be cut?”
“Every college will be cut, there’s no question in that. The question is will they bleed to death?” Bell said.
Tech will evaluate programs around campus and determine low producing programs and programs that are not a necessity. Departments such as Speech Communication will not be subjected to evaluation because there is a five year cushion. Young departments would not have sufficient records. According to Bell this is their saving grace.
A question was raised concerning TBR’s memorandum sent out in Dec. after the underhanded decision to remove the tuition cap.
“No ideas there were new to higher education. I didn’t see anything that was new,” said Bell
Chancellor Charles Manning attached several possible ways to alleviate some of the budget woes in the memorandum. Moving to online courses, advanced students teaching freshmen, increased adjunct professor use, and moving to a four-day week are just a few.
“If a class needed to be cut, could it be transferred online?” asked Iwanyszn.
According to Bell moving courses to online would not save any money unless the course was already offered. Otherwise an instructor would still have to be paid. He also relayed his confidence with “the best of the best of students” teaching freshman classes.
Information about the budget crisis changes daily, and as of right now very little is known for sure.
“Keep your seatbelts on. We’ll try to keep you as informed as we can,” said Bell.