PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The University of Maine System has cut its $90 million projected budget deficit for fiscal year 2020 nearly in half.
Trustees received an update on the system's financial outlook this morning, at their bi-monthly board meeting in Presque Isle.
The system has saved $37 million over the past year through a painful mix of layoffs and consolidation of departments and services.
The bulk of the savings, about $21 million, came from cutting jobs. So while the system's financial outlook has improved, Chancellor James Page says the achievement is not something to be celebrated.
"Closing this structural budget gap is absolutely essential for the health and well being of public higher education in Maine," he says. "At the same time, however, and as I commented earlier to the trustees, a lot of people lost their jobs. Those were decisions that were very tough to make."
A total of 194 positions were eliminated, systemwide, in fiscal year 2016, including 51 faculty jobs at the University of Southern Maine. The system has shed more than 600 jobs since 2010.
Another $10 million in savings came from cost cutting at individual campuses and from the One University initiative, which aims to create single HR, IT, procurement and financial departments for the system and its seven universities.
An increase in revenues over the past year, including nearly $3 million additional dollars from the LePage Administration, has also contributed to the savings.
"On quite a few of our campuses, we're seeing increasing enrollment from out-of-state students," says Ryan Low, chief financial officer for the University of Maine System.
Low says the University of Maine in Orono has seen its out-of-state enrollment jump from 19 percent of the student body in 2010 to 26 percent today.
"Now, 37 percent of their income in class, last year, is from out of state," he says. "So we really see that as an area for opportunities."
All the savings aside, the University of Maine System still faces a roughly $53 million shortfall by the year 2020.
System leaders plan to lobby the governor and the Legislature for additional funds next year. But more money from the state is just one piece of a complicated puzzle.
Another big one is the continued cost savings projected as part of the One University initiative. But some parts of the plan worry professor Ron Mosley, who teaches business and law at the University of Maine in Machias and is president of Associated Faculties of Maine.
"Financial considerations driving academic decisions," he says, "that's my major concern."
A team of administrators continues to review academic programs on the seven University of Maine System campuses in an effort to find opportunities for savings through consolidation and streamlining.
Changes under consideration include shared courses and faculty across campuses, short course and certificate programs and joint or systemwide degrees, such as one MBA for UMaine and USM.