Higher education will lose $27.2 million more in funding in the coming year for graduate-level instruction and research money, Gov. John Kitzhaber said Wednesday. Kitzhaber announced $80.7 million in cuts to bring Oregon’s budget back into balance and said he will call the Legislature back into a third
special session in June.
The governor announced changes to the Legislature’s most recent budget bill Tuesday, when he line-item vetoed portions of the budget that cut 911-response funding and relied on National Tobacco Trust money. Kitzhaber made up the difference today with his newest program cuts, but said he was sorry he had to cut additional funds from the state budget.
“We should never have arrived at this point in the first place,” Kitzhaber said. “But I am still hopeful that we can adopt a more sustainable, responsible budget in a subsequent special session.”
University Provost John Moseley said the University will do its best to cope with the new cuts, which raise the school’s total level of cuts from $6.8 million to $8.2 million.
“I hope these cuts won’t have an affect on the quality of education,” Moseley said. “But we’re going to be very stressed and stretched to educate over 20,000 students next year.”
Kitzhaber’s new cuts affect almost every aspect of the state budget; in addition to higher education’s $27.2 million cut, K-12 took a $20 million cut, human services received a $25.55 million cut, and community colleges lost $3.3 million.
Combined with the Legislature’s most recent cuts to higher education, the system now faces $70.5 million in program reductions. Although most of the new cuts affect academic programs, research-intensive institutions, such as Oregon State University, stand to lose as much as $24 million from their budget.
OSU Provost Tim White said he’s hoping the governor’s proposal is not the final word on the matter.
“If cuts of this magnitude suggested by the governor are implemented,” he said, “the effects would be widespread and affect every county in the state of Oregon.”
White said that although the new cuts don’t directly target academics, the research, agricultural and forestry services OSU provides are desperately needed by the state.
“We support everything from hi-tech to hi-touch,” he said. “We go from top to bottom — that’s
our mission.”
But OSU student body president Justin Geddes said Oregon State has been targeted for budget cuts because of how aggressively the school has pursued funding for its own projects, such as top-tier engineering and veterinary schools.
“I’ve questioned whether this is the right time to be expanding” top-tier programs, Geddes said. “It would be great to have a top engineering school, but maybe the money might be better spent elsewhere.”
State Sen. Tony Corcoran said OSU has received a higher level of funding for its programs than other universities in recent years.
“I don’t think OSU got a disproportionate hit,” he said. “The University of Oregon got nothing from the last four legislative sessions. There’s a legitimate argument to be made that OSU is facing higher cuts because they’ve gotten a lot of extra research dollars in the past.”
Oregon Student Association Executive Director Joelle Lester said Kitzhaber could have done worse.
“These cuts aren’t fair, but it definitely illustrates the far-reaching effect of these budget cuts,” Lester said. “It is to the governor’s credit that he left undergraduate instruction intact.”
Bob Bruce, spokesman for the Oregon University System, agreed.
“The governor was looking for ways to find the dollars he needed,” Bruce said. “These reductions are designed to minimally affect academic programs.”
But a permanent solution may be harder to find.
“Our best hope is that the economy will recover in Oregon,” Bruce said.