Wright State trustees cut budget by $30.8M

FAIRBORN — Wright State University’s board of trustees approved more than $30.8 million in budget cuts Thursday even as they and top administrators panned the proposed reductions.

The school will lay off about 57 employees as part of an overall elimination of 189 positions, which will save the university more than $13.9 million. WSU will save another $8 million from operational changes, $6 million from last year’s voluntary retirement incentive plan and $2 million through additional attrition, according to the school.

The university’s budget is $284 million.

The number of positions being cut is up by 11 but the number of employees to be laid off is down by about 14 as more people decided to voluntarily leave the school. Layoff notices will go out to employees next week, officials said.

Although the budget proposal was made public on May 19, it was criticized on Thursday by the very people who prepared it.

Interim WSU President Curtis McCray said the university should have cut around $10 million more.

“I think our problems are a little deeper. … I would have preferred that perhaps our cuts had been around $40 million,” McCray said after the smaller amount was approved. “It’s going to be a tough year. It seems to me that probably we have yet cutting to do.”

Jeff Ulliman, Wright State’s vice president of business and finance, also cast doubt on the budget cuts when pressed by a community member during a question and answer session. Ulliman was asked if he had considered the public fallout of the cuts and whether they might keep students from coming to the university.

In determining cuts, Ulliman said, the university was unable take certain ideas into consideration because officials had a short timeline to find solutions.

“We did not, in my opinion, vet this well,” Ulliman said.

Like McCray, newly appointed trustee Bruce Langos suggested the budget cuts did not go far enough. He warned trustees that they may be “back in this room” to make more cuts in six to nine months.

Gov. John Kasich may also lose patience with trustees if they are unable to correct Wright State’s finances soon, Langos said. Kasich appoints trustees but his office would not comment Thursday on the suggestion that the governor would want to replace the board.

Wright State will need to add $45 million to its reserve fund over the next three years, school and state officials have said. WSU is projected to end fiscal year 2017 with around $31 million in reserves, according to the budget. Regardless of the cuts approved this week, the school is on track to be placed on state fiscal watch by 2019.

The cuts the board approved were strategically made to have minimal impact on the university’s “academic mission,” said Vice Chairman Doug Fecher.

No faculty members are being laid off but no pay increases have been budgeted either. The only programs the school is eliminating are its Russian, Japanese and Italian language courses because of low enrollment.

If deeper cuts were made, trustees would have had to consider eliminating entire degree programs, and the university was “not ready to take that step yet,” Fecher said.

WSU trustees also approved a 3 percent increase in tuition for out-of-state students and graduate students. Room and board fees will also increase by 3 percent.