UW-Platteville recently provided further details to the public into how they are fixing the $9.7 million structural deficit at the student senate meeting on Nov. 6.
The presentation started with the Vice Chancellor of Administrative Services, Chris Patton, explaining both the short- and long-term budget.
Patton stated that the universities’ short-term goal to clear the $9.7 million deficit for the 2024 fiscal year has been met, utilizing a combination of resources including tuition reserves, which is the “rainy day or tornado fund,” tuition re-estimates, using more precise enrollment numbers, as well as one-time salary and operational savings from unused balances from various sources, including “dining and housing.”
All these changes will negate the deficit for the 2024 fiscal year, according to Patton, who said, “We (will go) from a 9.7-million-dollar deficit to about $60,000 cash in the bank.” Patton added that this solution is far from long term, stating, “We need to have about 60 days worth of cash in savings, which for us is about 10 million dollars … the good news is that we are ending this year in the positive, but we still have a long road.”
Patton then explained that they calculated the University would end up $9 million dollars in debt by the end of the 2025 fiscal year at current spending rates, so they looked for long-term solutions that would remove the spending debt. This is where the layoffs come into play, as in the long term, “restructuring” will save the university about $7 million yearly. They also managed to collect $1.5 million in gifts, grants and program revenue, as well as a final $600,000 from various operations savings, totaling just over the needed $9 million for the long-term.
UW-Platteville Chancellor, Tammy Evetovich, opened the conversation for discussion about reorganization of the university, specifically stating that their goals when planning were to preserve student-facing services and programs, which include “classes needed for the degrees (students) want, technology services, police force, counselors, student health, advising, tutoring…these are the key student services we were trying to preserve.” Evetovich also talked about eliminating redundant services, aligning the number of educators and administration with the number of students and strengthening areas of revenue.
Next to speak was the Assistant Vice Chancellor, John B Dunning, Strategy & Planning, who got more specific with the exact numbers of the staff layoffs. Dunning stated their goal was to “adjust staffing levels to better correlate with student enrollment.” Dunning started by showing data that showed a steady increase in administrative and non-instructional academic staff despite a decrease in student enrollment. In order to combat this, both types of positions were brought back to 2012 levels, which was their goal date as that was when the enrollment decline started.
Dunning then delved into details about the layoffs, stating that they offered a Voluntary Separation Incentive Program to 99 individuals, 32 of which accepted the offer. Dunning later stated that these VSIP acceptances make up 18% of the total employees leaving, with 28 of the 32 positions resulting in savings. “20 of those positions will not be refilled, and the other eight we were able to fill with savings” Dunning stated.
The final point Dunning talked about was the overall impact on employees, which were divided between “low impact” and “high impact” options. The low impact options made up 54% of the employee restructure, breaking down in 13% of employee funding coming from other sources, 20% coming from vacant positions the university will not fill, 3% from positions the university will refill but save money on, and finally 18% through the VSIP program. The remaining 46% came from “high impact” options, i.e., layoffs and demotions, which breaks down into 6% demotions and 40% layoffs or non-renewals. Dunning stated that they were able to make 66% of the employee budget come from low impact options, minimizing the higher impact ones as a result.
It was also noted that all the currently existing student programs will still exist going forward, however there may be some administrative changes as the programs and services get restructured under new leadership.
As for future changes, Dunning stated that they are looking “very carefully” into potential program arrays or reworking programs for majors, and that they will announce any changes in December. They also mentioned that they had planned for furloughs in the spring semester, but that they see those as “highly unlikely” at the moment.
Evetovich finished the presentation by stating “We have shown you data, we have shown you numbers, we have shown you our principles, but I need to say that I recognize this impacts people. … It is the situation were in but that does not make it any better. I want this campus to be fiscally sound so that we can continue to serve our students. That means there are some people right now who are hurting, and I am encouraging you all to reach out, and be caring and understand that at the end of the day there are a lot of numbers up there but there’s people involved.”
