Cevallos: Budget presentations to resume today
President F. Javier Cevallos announced a second budget presentation on Tuesday. The presentation will be held today at 11 a.m. in Defrancesco Building, Room 100.
“Presenters from our Division of Administration and Finance will share the university’s budget forecasts for the next several academic years,” said Cevallos in an email addressed to the student body. Last week’s budget forecast presented to the University Senate left many in attendance with unresolved questions concerning the series of cost-saving cuts that will be implemented over the course of the next five years.
Although Cevallos assured the University Senate KU would “have to maintain quality and appropriate services” despite the university’s fiscal restraints, some on hand shared a pessimistic forecast of the quality of education that will be offered by KU in the years following the largest cost-saving measures.
The administration announced its plan to address budgetary concerns a few hours after Gov. Edward Rendell’s presented a proposed overhaul of the state budget.
In addition to imposing a five-percent tax on natural gas and an expansion of the state’s sales tax, Rendell proposed a plan to limit future annual increase to the state’s public pension system to about $600 million. The new proposals would not take effect until the following fiscal year.
The limitations imposed on future pension funds will coincide with PASSHE’s discussions with the system’s seven unions — exploring ways to control labor costs while bracing themselves for the impact a drastically underfunded pension fund and the end of Federal stimulus money will have on an already financially strapped state system.
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