University president announces 2016 budget plan

In hopes of stabilizing the university’s budget for this upcoming fiscal year, and in response to last fall’s decline in student enrollment, University of Toledo President Sharon Gaber announced in her Feb. 17 campus-wide letter the various ways she intends to solve campus-wide concerns.

Though she praised the progress the university has made, President Gaber recognized the need to address issues head on in order to overcome them.

“As many of you know, we face a number of budgetary pressures this year that were sparked by a decline in our enrollment last fall,” Gaber wrote in her letter. “I recognize that our reality was not created overnight, and that there are not quick or easy solutions.”

Gaber reached out to the campus community for assistance in response to this growing concern, and announced that Larry Kelley, the interim chief financial officer, would be working in correspondence with division and college leaders to identify a 1.5 percent stabilization reduction to this year’s operating budget, and a 3 percent reduction to the entire 2017 budget.

Anticipating this process as a first-step corrective initiative, President Gaber wrote that “college deans and vice presidents will have discretion regarding how best to meet these targets,” and this process will “incentivize units to look for ways to generate increased revenue by allowing some of it to be kept by the unit.”

Prior to making budgetary decisions — and in aspiration of further correction of this problem — multiple steps were enacted: changes in enrollment management, consolidation of the college and administration, an exploration of all possible avenues of cost savings, the recapture of utility savings, an eight-month position hold, and presidential scrutiny and approval on compensation increases.

“We must grow and correct our way out of this history that incorporates annual budget cuts,” Gaber stated. “I have no interest in repeating this exercise in the future, and I know you will agree with me. I truly believe that The University of Toledo is poised for growth in the coming years, and with your help, I am confident we will get there.”