University of South Carolina President Harris Pastides outlined revisions to the university’s budget in a letter emailed to faculty and staff at all campuses Monday (Dec. 8) and pledged to preserve the institution’s mission of teaching, research and service.

Since June, state appropriations to the university’s eight campuses have been reduced by nearly $39 million, Pastides said.

“This is not a time for hand-wringing,” he said. “We have taken and will continue to take strong measures. Our approach has been and will remain decisive and strategic.”

In a briefing with media, also on Monday, Pastides said the measures being taken will carry the university through the end of the fiscal year, even with the expectation of further cuts in the coming months.

The university will not respond to the budget cuts with system-wide furloughs nor a mid-year tuition increase.

Furloughs are a one-time savings, Pastides said, and the loss of nearly $39 million is permanent unless the funds are restored later.

“This means that the university would be staring at the same decisions next March or April as we prepare for our next fiscal year,” he said. “By that time, there may be additional cuts.

“Second, furloughs by law affect all employees within a given unit, regardless of the sources of their salaries, including our faculty and staff who are grant-funded federally. So we would be furloughing persons not paid from state funds and thereby jeopardizing the work of those projects while not being able to use those funds for other purposes.”

But especially important, Pastides said, furloughs affected lower-paid employees the most. “I want to protect those who maintain our campus as much as possible.”

Among the areas being affected:

OneCarolina and Capital Improvements: The university will defer its system-wide overhaul and modernization of data and information management processes known as OneCarolina. It plans to re-engineer OneCarolina so that the data and information processing capabilities of the university system are sufficient to meet fundamental needs for the foreseeable future. The university also will defer or scale back maintenance and renovations of buildings.

Personnel Actions: Faculty and staff hiring will be approved only for priority areas and mission-critical positions. Many instructors on yearly appointments are not being renewed, amplifying the workload for faculty and staff who remain.

Replacement of retiring faculty and staff is delayed, leaving positions unfilled. The university will work to ensure that key functions are performed.

As a last resort, the university is undertaking reductions in force (RIF) of non-teaching staff in some units. Each RIF action is carried out under a plan approved by the State Office of Human Resources, case by case.

Academic Programming: Some small class sections are being cancelled for spring and summer 2009. While this will modestly limit choices for students, deans have been instructed to manage course offerings so that students will be able to enroll in the classes that are needed to progress toward earning their degrees. Enrollment in certain smaller academic programs has been frozen; these will be reviewed for discontinuation.

Some units will change the cycle of admission to doctoral programs to every other year; the number of graduate assistantships may be reduced; and some faculty members have increased teaching loads. Because teaching and research are dual first priorities, some time devoted to service and outreach activities will be sacrificed.

Other savings: Travel expenses will be reduced. Travel that is crucial to the university’s research mission will be reviewed so that faculty and student scholars can present and discuss their discoveries at gatherings of prominent researchers and scholars. Travel on grant funding will not be affected.

Some units are reducing and, in some cases, eliminating summer research support for faculty; the purchase of supplies, books, journals and equipment deemed as non-mission critical is being reduced; and certain institutes or centers may be phased out.

Pastides, who will take a week without pay, said that he has told the Board of Trustees that the university will not seek their approval next year for tuition increases designed solely to offset losses from reduced state appropriations.

“We will be very moderate and very prudent,” Pastides said, explaining that only 15 percent of citizens in the Palmetto State have college degrees. “South Carolina needs more college students, not fewer … We will be very sensitive to not shutting doors.”

The Gamecock Guarantee, a program that guarantees tuition for qualified students whose families earn $25,000 or less, will continue. The university is seeking private funds and other assistance for the program.

Pastides said the university should be part of the solution to the budget crisis being felt by agencies and other colleges and universities throughout the state.

“In every great and progressive state, government turns to its state research universities and to the fine academic minds for advice and analytical data as they debate their public policy positions,” he said. “As the flagship university, we want to have a major role in making the life of every South Carolinian – not just those who enroll on our campuses – better through our mission of education and research.”

Visit http://www.sc.edu/budget for more information about the university’s budget reduction.