April 23, 2009 -- Budget Update

Colleagues,

As you likely know, the House and Senate have reached agreement on an operating budget for the 09-11 biennium.  And, so, you SHOULD now be expecting to hear from us about what the tentative agreement means.  And that`s why I am writing.  Please understand:

• We do not yet know what the operating budget agreement is.  They will not go public until they believe they have the support in both houses necessary to pass the budget. 
• This we do know: State budgets are very complex documents, a hundred pages of multiple notes and lines that must be understood to see the full impact at the level of a particular university.  It takes a minimum of 48 hours to get a clear picture once the budget is made public, and that`s with your colleagues in the University Budget Office burning the midnight oil.  Even after 48 hours, confusions typically remain and can only be cleared up over time and through much consultation.
• As soon as we have information to share, we will share it.  Expect, though, to read headlines in the newspapers on general parameters before we (or anybody else) can get reliable Western-specific information to you.
• What we do have is a sense of the range in which cuts to higher education were most recently being discussed.  At that discussion stage, the options were somewhere between bad and worse.  I am speculating on an outcome of "somewhat worse" but that remains to be seen.
• Our budget process is continuing, effectively in my view, starting with the budget presentation materials that have been available on the web for several months now.  That thoughtful, careful, deliberate progress is being made through daily meetings involving the deans, vice presidents, and me, and briefly suspended while we waited for the picture in Olympia to clear.  We begin again tomorrow morning and, with legislative agreement now apparently reached, I am confident we will have a draft university budget available for your scrutiny and improvement on schedule.

Again, my promise: as soon as we understand the budget implications for Western, you will know them.

My best,

Bruce