Administrators' choice of cuts spares non-essential programs

Editor,

Ruben Hamming-Green’s piece, “Lessons paused to address budget,” provided us with a perfect example of how the current administration is the master of spin as far as the budget is concerned.

While those who participated in last week’s teach-in should be applauded for raising awareness of the effects of budget cuts on UNM’s core mission, our provost comes out with two sentences that generally state: I support this action, but I’m sorry that students didn’t learn what they were supposed to in those classes.

Ouch! Well, please speak up, undergraduates, if you feel that your education suffered because instructors and TAs took a few class minutes to discuss how the administration is doing all it can to lower the quality of campus education for years to come.
I might add that UNM’s mission (page 9 of the 2010-11 UNM catalog) states clearly that one of its, and therefore its instructors’, “cornerstones of purpose” is to “Educate and encourage students to develop the values, habits of mind, knowledge and skills that they need to be enlightened citizens.” I congratulate those who “enlightened” their students last week.
So why the spin?

Here’s a quick UNM budget 101: Each month UNM receives on the order of $180 million from the state legislature to go toward instructional activities. Sounds like a lot, but this actually constitutes less than 10 percent of the University’s total revenue and about 20 percent of the main campus budget.

So surely a $6 million rescission in the money coming from Santa Fe should be relatively easily covered by the documented growth in other sources of revenue. Right?

Wrong, because money in “Pot X” can’t be added to ”Pot Y,” and money taken from ”Pot A” to fund ”Pot B” can’t be put back. Therefore, the budget of the Office of the President is able to increase from $2.5 million in 2002 to $8.5 million in 2010, while the College of Arts & Sciences is making do with the same budget it had in the 1990s.

But what if money from “Pot X” really can’t be moved to “Pot Y”? What then?
How do we make up the $6 million shortfall? A close examination of the distribution of state funding once it reaches UNM (source: FY11 Joint Faculty/Staff/GPSA Budget Proposal) shows that large chunks are heading to groups and projects that have nothing to do with UNM’s core mission.

Here are a few examples: At least $1.5 million of instructional funding goes to the non-instructional UNM Foundation (incidentally the College of Arts and Sciences, which has the largest enrollment and teaches the most classes, is currently being asked to cut its budget by $1.5 million); $733,040 of instructional funds goes to UNM Alumni relations (is it teaching our classes?); $975,053 of instructional funds props up our fiscally unsustainable intercollegiate Athletics program.

I’m already more than halfway to $6 million, and I barely got started. So let’s make sure that when the Provost’s Office tells us its identified fat that can be trimmed, it’s not by forcing colleges to shed instructors, TAs and staff members that actually support the University’s stated mission.

Thomas Whittaker
UNM post-doc