State budget back in play

By Myles Brand, President of Indiana University

But this year, just months after the 2001-2003 state spending plan has been approved, the budget is back in play. Declining state revenues have led to a potential shortfall and to concerns that state leaders may have to reopen the budget. IU has already felt some pain from the economic reversals. The current budget plan delays payment of one month’s operating funds from the state, at a cost of $35 million to our university.

Clearly, further reductions would be bad news for higher education. While the share of IU’s budget that is supplied by the state has fallen steadily in the past two decades, the state still provides an important share of our general fund budget. Cuts would be felt by students, faculty and staff on all of our campuses and in the communities they serve.

Indiana University is the fourth largest employer in the state, providing secure, family-wage jobs to employees at our campuses and medical education centers around the state. A recent national survey found that every dollar that a state invests in a major research university produces five dollars in additional income.

Meanwhile, Indiana University remains committed to providing the research expertise and educational opportunities that our state will need to be economically strong in years to come. So short-term budget cuts—which might curtail efforts to retain top faculty, build a strong research base and provide access to the widest range of qualified students—would have a negative long-term impact on Indiana’s economic future.

IU has never been a lavishly funded university. Many of our peer institutions receive more in per student revenues than does IU. We have traditionally stressed the Hoosier value of doing more with less.

A recent study by the Indiana Educational Policy Center found that, compared with our peer institutions, IU spends a smaller share of its budget on administration and a larger share on instruction. We are in the midst of an administrative services review to take a careful look at how technological advances might produce new cost savings that we can reinvest in the academic side of our institution.

No matter what turn the budget story may take, we must respond as we always have, by doing everything we can to provide outstanding education in the most efficient and effective way possible.

What’s on your mind? E-mail President Brand at: pres@indiana.edu

http://www.indiana.edu/~pres/