Budget Update

Who would think about celebrating a budget cut? Well, when you are expecting more and you get less, that's cause for celebrating! Early last fall some people were predicting as much as a 25% reduction in state funding. The out-going governor asked state agencies to plan for 1- 3% reductions. Of course, this is in addition to all the other cuts we've already taken. In the end, the reduction for the three IPS line items is only about 1%, so yes we have reason to celebrate!

In addition to the cut in funding, we received an increase to fund the rising costs of retirement and health insurance. On top of that we received salary and benefits dollars equivalent to 1.6% of our state-funded positions.

All in all, this is a much better budget picture than we were expecting, at least on the state side. Now we're hoping our federal funding picture turns out as rosy!

More details to come as we work toward completing our proposed budgets during the month of May. The Board of Trustees will officially approve the budget in June.