Budget gaps throughout the seven campuses of the University of Maine System have been common-place for years and were once projected to reach nearly $90 million dollars. But a series of cost-cutting measures are paying off for the university system which is pursuing additional restructuring under its One University Initiative. Trustees say the program will eliminate redundancies, but some faculty members say it's degrading the students' educational experience.
Meeting at their Bangor headquarters, members of the UMaine System Board of Trustees finally got some good news from Ryan Low, the system's chief financial officer. Budget deficits are shrinking.
"What you see here is a budget deficit that's going in the opposite direction, so in fiscal year 18, it's set at about six million, then four, then two and ultimately a projected budget surplus in Fiscal Year 21," Low says.
Low acknowledges that at $400,000, it's a small budget surplus to be sure. But the fact that it is there at all was encouraging to board trustees who have been struggling with years of state budget cuts and flat funding while operating costs at the seven campuses continue to rise. As the trustees grappled with those financial challenges, some difficult choices were made. At the University of Southern Maine more than 50 faculty positions and five programs were axed in 2014 to avoid a $16 million shortfall. Sam Collins, chairman of the UMS Board of Trustees, said Lowe's projections are encouraging.
"It's certainly encouraging news from where we were just back a couple of years ago when there was a projection of close to a $90 million gap," Collins says. "And to have made that up in this short period of time is very exciting and to be above the line and to be in positive territory by 2021, that's very, very encouraging."
Still, the financial news did not exactly inspire faculty members and union representatives who were at the meeting. Educators such as John Messier, an Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Maine at Farmington, wonder whether their campuses will lose their unique identities under the One University restructuring plan. While the trustees say there is no intention of folding all of the campuses under a single university, Messier says the instructor-student relationship already feels different. That's because of the adoption of a common calendar that governs course offerings throughout the system under the One University Initiative.
"Now we no longer have time to meet with our advisees, the start of the common calendar actually has impeded our ability to be able to introduce ourselves to our advisees early on that's a real issue because so many of our students are first generation college students who don't have a lot of background on what the college experience is, don't know what an advisor is — so it really disadvantages them," Messier says.
Lois Kilby-Chesley, president of the Maine Education Association that represents faculty members and other university system employees, said union officials are concerned with the amount of time faculty members are being asked to devote to One University paperwork which she says has become so burdensome it could actually morph into a potential contract violation.
"To do some of the paperwork takes 25 times the amount of time that it did take and so those sorts of things that take away from the teaching, that always affects a collective bargaining agreement," Kilby-Chesley said.
Board Chair Sam Collins says the trustees have heard the faculty's concerns and want to include them in the development of the new initiative. Also during Monday's meeting, trustees voted unanimously to reappoint Chancellor James Page to another one-year term and also approved a $523 million budget for fiscal year 2017. That budget holds in-state tuition flat for the sixth consecutive year.
Disclosure: The Maine Education Association represents some staff at Maine Public Radio.
Correction: Chancellor James Page was reappointed to a one-year term, not four.