President David Schmidly has pledged to cut 15 percent of nonacademic administrative spending in the next three years, and University administrators refuse to confirm or deny the possibility of cutting jobs to achieve that goal.
Staff Council President Loyola Chastain questioned Schmidly and the Board of Regents at their meeting last week about what areas and positions would be considered nonacademic and administrative for budget reduction purposes. She did not get a direct answer.
At the meeting, Regents President Jamie Koch answered by saying the regents do not have enough information to comment on the situation. He said that the regents will work through these issues during the budget process.
In an e-mail to the Daily Lobo, Andrew Cullen, associate vice president for Planning, Budget and Analysis, said the definition of nonacademic administrative spending is not determined by the University.
"The definitions we use come from policies developed by the Higher Education Department," he said. "While everything we do at the University supports academics in some fashion, when we talk about nonacademic administrative spending, we're talking about institutional support: executive management, fiscal operations, general administration and logistical operations."
Cullen said this includes salaries, just as every area of spending at the University includes some form of payroll.
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Departments that fall into the category include Accounting, Human Resources, the Bursar's Office, Postal Services, and offices of the president and vice presidents, Cullen said.
"The budget levels of each vary widely. Accounting and Human Resources have large budgets, while some of the executive offices have relatively small budgets," he said.
Schmidly said last week that a 15 percent cut would amount to $6 million, meaning the University spends an average of $40 million each year on institutional support.
Cullen said that in fiscal year 2008, 15.4 percent of the Main Campus instruction and general budget went to "unrestricted institutional support," and this totaled $41.2 million. However, he said this figure could change.
".Of this amount, we may still have to remove fixed-cost items like insurance and data processing," he said. "Final amounts to be considered are still being finalized."
Chastain called for the administration to be more transparent in its deliberations before cuts are made to balance the budget.
"From the staff view, this reduction will directly impact the majority of staff members, so there are more questions surrounding this initiative than there are answers," she said. "What is the implication for units such as these? No less than full disclosure on this plan must be forthcoming."
At the regents' meeting, Faculty Senate President Howard Snell asked whether there would be enough time for the administration to incorporate comments and recommendations from staff and faculty during the budget process, because feedback is due March 27 and the budget is drafted April 1, two working days later.
David Harris, executive vice president of Business and Finance, said the short time would not present a problem.
Schmidly asked Harris how long it takes to draw up the University's budget.
"Well, we'll only have 21 days, so that's how long it's going to take," Harris replied.
Harris said the administration will begin working on the budget March 20, when the Legislature establishes what its appropriations for the University will be, and the budget should be complete by April 9 and presented to the Higher Education Department by May 1.
In an e-mail to the Daily Lobo, UNM spokeswoman Susan McKinsey said the University cannot specify whether staff positions that fall within the category of nonacademic administrative spending will be cut.
"The president has stated repeatedly that the primary goals of the institution during this economic crisis will be to protect the core mission of education and research and preserve the current work force," McKinsey said. "That being said, there are still manyˇsteps in the process to go through before the University can establish anything about its budget.. So any comment nowˇwould be pure speculation, and we will not speculate onˇthis."
McKinsey said individual departments will be responsible for making decisions about where to cut their spending and that final decisions on the budget guidelines won't be available until the Legislature has established what its appropriations to UNM will be.
But there are other ways the University could save $2 million in nonacademic administrative spending this year, McKinsey said.
The preliminary guidelines Schmidly announced last week called for administrators to minimize spending on food purchases, professional society membership dues, printing, and professional service agreements. He also said he will restrict travel, reduce energy use and defer all purchases of equipment, furniture and computers until further notice.
McKinsey said UNM will consider cutting these expenditures before endangering anyone's job.
"Payroll is always the last to go," she said.
