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WSU faces 'strategic' staffing cuts after regents adopt pared-down budget
Jun. 5—Washington State University is likely to face personnel cuts in the coming weeks after the school's Board of Regents adopted a budget that includes a $17.1 million reduction in spending for the upcoming fiscal year. On Thursday, the Board of Regents unanimously adopted a budget that includes $1.3 billion in spending across all funds, and approximately $661.3 million in spending in core funds. The plan includes a 4.1% reduction in spending. "This plan represents the economic pressures public universities now face, all of us, and the bold direction we've chosen to take at Washington State University," President Elizabeth Cantwell said in a video update Wednesday. The focus will shift in the coming weeks to implementing cuts in most of the university's 41 units, though the cuts will not be across the board. Six units — the College of Arts and Sciences, the Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, libraries, external affairs and government relations, research, and law enforcement — will not see any cuts under the plan, while the other 35 units may see cuts of up to 10% and will work over the next 30 days to formalize proposals to curb spending. According to Leslie Brunelli, the executive vice president and chief financial officer, more than 80% of the university's core funds budget is "tied up" in personnel spending. "So those are people at the other end of that, and we want to be very thoughtful about the loss of personnel," Brunelli said. "Some of those reductions will be made with vacant positions, but some will be people who are currently employed at Washington State." Brunelli said it's "a little bit too early" to know how many staff members could be impacted. "We have a ballpark, but I would really not feel comfortable sharing that until we know what that is," Brunelli said. "I don't want to create an agitation where it's not necessary." The staff reductions, however, are likely to be spread across the university, rather than focused on specific departments. The university, like many others in the country, has experienced turmoil in federal funding in recent months, although WSU's funding woes are compounded by the 1.5% across-the-board cut to higher education included in the recently passed state biennial budget. That translates to $9.9 million over the next two years, though the university also stands to lose other state funds. "We're pretty good at figuring out how to strategically take reductions and not harm academic core, not harm services to students," Cantwell said Thursday. The university, Cantwell said, is investing additional resources in student support services, and making other investments in the College of Arts and Sciences. "We have made it a priority to protect the student experience and student success," Provost Chris Riley-Tillman said. "That's our core, original mission, and it's one of our most important things, both existentially and fiscally." While students are not likely to notice many of the cuts and savings when they return to campus in the fall, they will see a 3.3% increase in tuition costs. The university, however, does not project an increase in the revenue received from tuition, as enrollment at Washington State, like many universities, has declined in recent years. The decline in enrollment, Riley-Tillman said, has a ripple effect, as cohorts of students work their way through the university. "As you get the dip down, and then you floor out and you start to go back up, you're now graduating large classes, and those very small classes from the subsequent COVID years are still in your system," Riley-Tillman said. "So this ends up being a five- or six-year recovery period." Since enrollment peaked during the 2019-2020 school year, the university has seen a 17% decline, and it is bracing for the potential for another decrease. "Truly, you don't know what the enrollment is until August when the students show up and pay their bills," Brunelli said. "There is something called the summer melt, and that happens for the first time, first-year students, our freshmen that come in the door, even transfers. But we also need to make sure our retention remains strong." As it navigated potential budgeting options, the university has modeled different scenarios over the past several months, Cantwell said during an interview Thursday. "There are a few places where we are investing," Cantwell said. "These are strategic ... cuts and additions, even in a year where we have to mostly reduce, we will make strategic investments so that we can do things like support the students that we have, make sure that they finish, and grow enrollment across the panorama of everybody who wants to come to us. Just sort of guardrails like that are in our thinking as we think about how we make these choices." The university, Brunelli said, has modeled what the potential impact of the loss of federal grants and indirect cost recoveries between 5% and 50% would be. Cantwell said the university has also modeled what impact cuts to the Department of Education would have on the school, particularly how cutting federal student aid will impact the ability of students to attend college. One silver lining from the session, Brunelli said, is that the state did not make cuts in the Washington College Grant, which many students rely on to help pay for school. The university also stands to see less impact from a potential decline in international students, as it is focused on students from Washington. Last week, the university announced the chancellor position for its Pullman campus would be dissolved, placing executive oversight of the campus back under the university president. "The president of the system, because I live in Pullman, can fully operate in that chancellor sort of role," Cantwell said. "So that's given us the opportunity to cut some costs there. We've combined offices, we've found some efficiencies there." Cantwell said she anticipates proposals for "kind of across-the-board" administrative cuts to be introduced in the coming weeks. "I'm guessing we're all asking ourselves, 'How do we do what we do at the administrative level a little bit more efficiently to deliver to results that we need to out of our offices?' " Cantwell said. "We need to walk the walk in addition to talking the talk. We can do what we need to do with less."
