The UNM Board of Regents will hold a special meeting to address the UNM budget on Friday, April 2, at 1 p.m. in Ballroom C of the Student Union Building on the UNM main campus. This is the university's annual budget review, also known as the budget summit. A special session of the New Mexico state legislature ended on March 4. Gov. Bill Richardson has until March 24 to make his decision on the state budget and package of tax increases approved by legislators.
This budget, as approved by the state legislature, reflects another cut in state funding for UNM. Overall, the main campus, HSC and branches had appropriations reduced 7.7 percent, totaling $25,052,700.
The total for each component is as follows:
Main Campus - $14,920,900 (7.4 percent)
HSC - $9,143,600 (8.7 percent)
Branches - $988,200 (4.9 percent)
When coupled with cuts made during the previous special session last October, UNM’s main campus instruction and general (I&G) funding for FY2011 is 6.9 percent below what was in the original FY2010 budget.
The main campus I&G lost $7,701,970 in appropriations and $5,166,030 in a 5 percent state tuition tax credit. That amounts to a $12.8 million cut. I&G funding pays for core operations of the university, including salaries. In addition, main campus research and special project funding is down an average 15.3 percent, or another $2 million. Athletics and KNME have been reduced 10.5 percent each.
With these numbers, the university must begin to prepare a budget for submission to and approval by the Regents. It must be in Santa Fe May 1.
Priorities will remain the same as last year:
• Protect the classroom and services our students need to graduate.
• Ensure our faculty can continue with the least interruption of their research and scholarly creative activities.
• Keep UNM as affordable as possible with the least necessary increases in tuition and fees.
• To the extent possible, protect our workforce because New Mexico needs jobs and people at work.
Addressing this issue at the regents’ meeting, President David Schmidly said, “To meet these priorities will require that we emphasize cost containment. That will be the focus of building this budget - strategies that will achieve cost reductions through improved, streamlined processes and long-term efficiencies.”
In building the budget, Schmidly said he will consider the cost containment and revenue generating recommendations of the President’s Strategic Advisory Team, those from the schools, colleges and units reporting to the executive vice presidents, and those from various constituency groups of the UNM community. His goal is to lay out a three-year plan for cost containment at UNM.