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 Blanche
Touhill, the outgoing chancellor of the University of Missouri–St.
Louis (UMSL), began her last State of the University address by
looking back.
“I remember quite clearly stepping onto this stage for the first
time as your chancellor,” she tells the faculty, staff and students
who have gathered at the J.C. Penney Auditorium on the UMSL campus.
“The year was 1991. State resources were tight, faculty and staff
raises were small or non-existent, and academic programs were in
jeopardy.”
Touhill looks up from her notes, pausing to give the tiniest hint
of an ironic smile.
“Whoever said the more things change, the more they stay the same,”
she says, “must have been from Missouri.”
The audience explodes with laughter—probably to keep from crying.
In the last fiscal year, Touhill reminds them, the University of
Missouri system saw its operating budget cut by $88 million.
Touhill and UMSL are not alone. Faced with a $765 million state
budget shortfall last fiscal year (2002), Missouri lawmakers slashed
$286 million (including $133 million in capital improvements) from
the Department of Higher Education’s $975 million budget.
Joe Martin, associate commissioner for fiscal and legislative affairs
at the department, says his organization is facing “desperate times.”
“In the current fiscal year (2003), which began July 1, every (higher
education) institution in the state had its budget reduced by 10
percent,” Martin says. “That comes to about $100 million in operating
expenses.”
Martin says higher education bears a larger burden in tough times
mainly because lawmakers know that state colleges have some additional
sources of revenue, namely, tuition and student fees, and because
higher education is the largest single discretionary area of the
state budget.
Henry D. Shannon, chancellor of St. Louis Community College (STLCC),
says the state portion of his budget was trimmed by $8.1 million
last year, a 19 percent reduction.
“Last year, the students paid about 19 percent of the cost of education
and the state paid about 37 percent,” he explains. “This year students
will pay 23 percent and the state 33 percent.”
Just like UMSL—which raised its tuition by 14 percent, including
a $9 per credit hour surcharge—STLCC’s tuition jumped from $40 to
$48 per credit hour. Shannon says it’s the first tuition increase
the college has seen in seven years.
Down the street, at Harris-Stowe State College, tuition was increased
26 percent.
“That’s almost unheard of,” says Henry Givens Jr., president of
Harris-Stowe. “We went from $95 to $120 per credit hour. That’s
a heck of a step, particularly at an institution with a large majority
of low income students.”
Givens says Harris-Stowe has seen almost $2 million cut from last
year’s $11.2 million budget.
“All we’re hoping is that higher education can survive this year
without any additional cuts,” Givens says. “We’ve already been cut
to the bone.”
But in reality, Martin says, the cuts are likely just beginning.
“We anticipate that there will be (additional) holdbacks for this
year,” Martin says. “We have not been presented information related
to amounts, but state revenues for the first two months are already
coming in under estimated amounts.”
Martin says the budget woes reflect a fundamental flaw in the state
budget process.
“Back in the mid to late ’90s, when revenues were flush, (higher
education) experienced growth in appropriations,” Martin says. “At
the same time, we had almost $1 billion refunded to taxpayers through
the Hancock amendment process.”
To deal with the issue of too much money, Martin says lawmakers
enacted permanent tax cuts and tax credits. Under the Hancock Amendment,
these tax cuts cannot be reversed without a statewide vote of the
people.
“For the temporary surge in revenues, there were a lot of permanent
changes enacted to reduce tax revenues,” he says.
Coupled with the current economic downturn, decreased federal income
tax revenues, added security expenses after 9/11 and an increase
in Medicaid expenses, the state now has huge demands placed on a
relatively small amount of discretionary funds.
It doesn’t help, Martin adds, that not every legislative district
has an institution of higher learning.
“Other state departments have very strong constituencies in every
legislator’s district,” Martin says. “They make very compelling—oftentimes
life and death reasons—why they should get and retain more state
funding.”
Just so that no one gets jealous, the situation isn’t any brighter
on the other side of the Mississippi River. David Werner, Chancellor
of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE), says he feels
his Missouri colleagues’ pain.
“We’ve had the equivalent of an 8.6 percent reduction in our general
revenue, which is what we get from the state of Illinois,” Werner
says. “The cut was $4.4 million, plus now we have to pay for part
of employees’ health insurance, which comes to $1.8 million.”
A veteran administrator, Werner says he’s never faced a budgetary
crisis of this magnitude.
“This is the most severe budget reduction we’ve ever had, both in
inflation and absolute numbers,” he says. “Far greater than anything
we’ve experienced in the past.”
Werner blames much of the problem on a decrease in discretionary
spending in Illinois.
“In addition to the economy being flat and tax revenue being flat,
there are some expenses that the state is required to handle right
off the top,” Werner says. “The two biggest of those are health
insurance and funding of pension plans for the university employees.
Those two expenditures have to be covered.”
Until things improve, administrators on both sides of the river
must make do. At STLCC, Shannon says maintenance and repair programs
have been put on hold.
“A lot of capital projects have been deferred,” he says. “We haven’t
been able to expand, and we’ve had to reduce about 40 full-time
positions. The challenge is to be more effective and efficient.”
It is some consolation, according to all four administrators, that
campus enrollments have not declined, even in the face of steep
tuition increases.
“We have always had the ability to attract students,” Touhill says.
“Mainly because we try to respond to the academic needs of the metropolitan
St. Louis area. And as we do that, particularly through the workforce
needs, we attract a lot of students.”
Shannon says it’s important that administrators do everything they
can to put pressure on lawmakers. He travels frequently to Jefferson
City, and he carries a simple, direct message: pay us now, or pay
us later.
“We know we have to make an impact on the new legislators,” he says.
“If you don’t have an educated workforce in the state, the state
will pay for it with people who have less education and less earning
power. The state will suffer from that in five or 10 years, because
it won’t have the trained workforce to attract companies.”
Bob Schaper is a freelance writer based in St. Louis.
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