About 10 percent of the $20.7 million in UCSD’s annual registration-fee funds ‘mdash; which have historically supported student services ‘mdash; will help fill gaps from state-funding reductions for the 2009-10 academic year. Administrators say the cuts will most likely’ threaten student services in the form of programming, events and staffing levels.
The campuswide deficit next year is expected to range from $450 million to $700 million, $115 million of which stem from state funding cuts. In response, the Student Affairs Office, which oversees the funds, has charged the 17 members on the’ Registration Fee Advisory Committee with prioritizing each of 26 registration fee-funded units ‘mdash; including the Student Health Center, Career Services Center, university centers and campus recreation ‘mdash; to ensure the least amount of damage to programming.
The committee is still debating whether to make an across-the-board cut or investigate which specific student services could afford greater funding slashes.
Funding accrued from the cut will then be converted to general funds, about 70 percent of which goes toward academic affairs such as admissions and maintaining the availability of classes, salary and inflation adjustments, previous over-enrollment and staffing.
Committee chair and graduate student Garo Bournoutian said registration-fee funds need to be separated from budget cuts in order to maintain the availability of student services.
‘Students are paying [money] specifically for these services, and they’re independent of the state,’ Bournoutian said. ‘You’re still paying the same amount, so you should be getting the same services. It doesn’t make sense that because the state’s losing money, the reg fee gets cut to make up for it.’
Bournoutian said that in the 1970s, the regents separated the current $288 registration fee from the $2,087 education fee to protect student services from budget reductions, since these services are typically the first to be cut.
The university’s protocol for dealing with state budget cuts, however,’ ‘ is to subtract from its three funding sources ‘mdash; general state funds, education fees and registration fees ‘mdash; to limit the impact on any one source.
‘Our campus looks at all three funding sources as one pool of funds,’ Bournoutian said. ‘It’s hard [to protect student services from these cuts] because everything is an advisory to [Chancellor Marye Anne Fox]. But the key is to get students to see what the impact is and convey that to the chancellor.’
Bournoutian said student input ‘mdash; through the 11 student representatives on the committee ‘mdash; is crucial
to funding prioritization, in order to ensure the least damage to programs and events students value the most.
‘At least the ones that are at the lower tier, that ‘mdash; if push comes to shove and we need to lose it for a couple years ‘mdash; it won’t be catastrophic,’ he said. ‘It won’t be something that students depend on day to day.’
The committee’s report will be finalized in the next two or three weeks, and will include recommendations under three scenarios: 5 percent, 10 percent and 15 percent cuts. The severity of the cuts, which would occur in July, will be determined when the university receives its finalized operating budget in the coming months.
‘If the number is big, we might have to reorganize Student Affairs,’ Assistant Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Ed Spriggs said. ‘Make it more centralized, because right now there’s not a lot of bureaucracy. It’s not vertical and very spread out.’
Spriggs cited the overlapping Administrative Services and Student Affairs departments in each of the campus’ six colleges as a possible area of consolidation.
He said there have already been hiring freezes and caps on executive salaries.
‘The major budget reduction is hitting all areas of campus, and the reg fees are a part of it,’ Spriggs said. ‘We have to put the perspective of cutting from one department against all other priorities.’
The looming 10 percent reduction from registration-fee funds would follow a 5 percent cut to the Student Affairs Office from last December.
‘The department was able to absorb [the 5 percent cut], but we lost wiggle room and flexibility for future reductions,’ Spriggs said.
He added that the department ‘never really recovered’ from shaving $5 million off its 2003-04 budget.
‘There’s no area where we’ve got any fat,’ he said.
The Campus Budget Office will ultimately decide the allocation of funds from registration fee cuts after the university’s operational budget is finalized, likely focusing on maintaining the university’s academic function.
‘No decisions have been made yet, but we’re trying to determine how to best manage expected state-budget reductions to mitigate our core instructional mission,’ said Sylvia Lepe-Askari, assistant vice chancellor of the campus budget office. ‘The campus has to fund state reductions with general funds.’
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