MA Universities Face 18% Loss

The Massachusetts House of Representatives, facing a budget gap of more than $2 billion, would reduce state support for the University of Massachusetts (UMass) system by $80 million, an 18 percent cut.

However, the House rejected Republican Governor Mitt Romney's most ambitious plan—a proposal to dismantle the five-campus system and eliminate the office of President William Bulger. The budget debate now shifts to the Senate, which will deliberate this month.

The House plan also includes the proposed elimination of a line item for funding higher education library materials—a relatively minor move that could have grave implications for students. "What they are eliminating is a special line that has been in existence for three decades, dedicated to acquisitions in public higher education libraries," explained Margo Crist, director of libraries at UMass-Amherst. Crist said libraries do get money from their campuses and that the line item in recent years had been slashed by 90 percent, from $14 million to about $1.5 million, in 2001.

For UMass-Amherst, it will mean a loss of $377,000, "not peanuts," said Crist. Since FY02, the university has faced deep cutbacks in funding. Crist credits Amherst administrators and librarians with supporting the library. When the library lost $4 million in state funds last year, Amherst officials replaced $3 million.

California's budget deficit is now projected at a stunning $38 billion, but Governor Gray Davis will not seek to trim any more money from the state's universities. In the "May revision" of his 2003–04 budget, Davis proposed no further cuts to higher education, despite the ballooning deficit. Earlier this year, he proposed $326 million in budget reductions for the 23-campus California State University (CSU) system and $300 million in cuts for the nine-campus University of California (UC) system (see News , LJ 2/15/03, p. 18).

In a nod to just how hard university officials are looking for good news in such difficult budget times, UC officials praised Davis for not asking for further larger cuts. "We are grateful to the governor for placing a priority on public education in this time of great fiscal distress for the state," said Larry Hershman, UC vice president for budget, in a statement. Still, those initial proposed cutbacks likely mean reductions of as high as ten percent in many departmental budgets, including libraries. The budget is supposed to be in place by July 1 but likely will linger into the fall.