AUGUSTA, Maine - Tensions over the University of Maine's financial struggles, and the system's ongoing efforts to address them, took center stage at this morning's meeting of the Legislature's Education and Cultural Affairs Committee. Lawmakers on the committee heard testimony on a series of bills. Among them, measures to restore faculty and programs and make the system more accountable financially.
The University of Maine system faces a $90 million deficit by the year 2020, it's leaders say, unless it keeps pursuing a painful, long-term process of cost-cutting and consolidation of services across it's seven campuses.
Last year saw academic and other program cuts at the University of Southern Maine and elsewhere. A total of 157 jobs were eliminated system wide, too. And officials have had to tap more than $20 million in emergency reserves to balance both last year's and this year's budgets.
"We must do better for our students," said Rep. Diane Russell, a Portland Democrat who graduated from the University of Southern Maine. "I had an amazing education at the University of Southern Maine, and I will not stand by and watch that educational institution, my alma mater, implode simply because there's a lack of engagement and trust."
Russell made this vow, as she introduced two bills before the Legislature's Education and Cultural Affairs Committee - measures that she says will increase engagement and re-establish trust between the system office and USM.
One would direct the state Office of Program Evaluation and Government Accountability to review and audit the system's finances and governance practices and report back to the Legislature by next January. Over the past year, faculty and students at USM have questioned the financial calculations used by the system office to make its case for the program cuts and faculty reductions.
Russell says allowing OPEGA to take a look would increase transparency and trust. "Having a common set of facts that folks can look to and say, 'You know what? There's no bias here,' whether it's on the side of the administration or the side of the faculty and the students. All I'm asking for is a common set of facts."
But system officials say the facts are not in dispute. "University finances are subject to substantial and continuous internal review by campus presidents, CFOs and budget managers, as well as the system office," said James Page, the UMaine System chancellor. The system's board of trustees, Page noted, regularly reviews all budgets and includes some of the state's most financially knowledgeable leaders from the public and private sectors.
In addition, the chancellor told the committee, system finances are regularly examined by outside groups like Standand and Poors, which reviews the numbers as part of their bond rating due diligence. "A complete and separate audit, of the scope and scale contemplated by this legislation, would be redundant and resource-consuming, as my staff would have to turn its near full attention to meeting its time line," Page said.
Two other measures, meantime, would ensure that more of the precious funding from the state go directly into classrooms and lecture halls. Professor Susan Finneran heads USM's School of Social Work. She says the department's elective offerings have been steadily shrinking. "This has caused us to restrict any growth in the school. We are expecting retirements in the near future, thus continuing this trend of offering fewer class sections, increasing class sizes and reducing overall course availability to our students."
Only more resources, flowing into the classroom, will halt this trend says Finneran.
Rep. Diane Russell's other measure would provide for larger funding increases for the system over the next three years. But the problem with that, Chancellor Page told the committee, is that it would merely delay many of the painful decisions that are unavoidable, if the University of Maine is to get its finances under control and become sustainable over the long term.