WSU budget plan includes 370 job cuts

Washington State University plans to cut 371 jobs and eliminate several academic programs to make up a $54 million deficit in its budget for the next two years.

Major cuts are proposed for the school's core agriculture research and extension programs, plus engineering, liberal arts and sciences. The school's branch campus in Vancouver also will see deep cuts, according to the plan released Friday by President Elson Floyd.

Nursing and medical education were not cut at all, and library funding was barely reduced.

"We've got to preserve the quality and excellence Washingtonians have expected at Washington State University," Floyd told a news conference. "The reality is we must balance our budget at the end of the day. This approach does precisely that."

The proposals will be debated during May, then final decisions will be made in June, Floyd said. The new fiscal year begins July 1.

The budget passed by the Legislature last week requires WSU to reduce its budget by more than $100 million. But money from federal economic stimulus spending, plus a 28 percent increase in tuition over the next two years, would reduce that amount to $54 million, or 10.38 percent of its current budget, WSU officials said.

Academic programs slated for elimination include sport management, the Department of Theater and Dance, the Department of Community and Rural Sociology and the major in German. Those decisions were based on low enrollment or the ability to provide a high-quality product, Floyd said. Students majoring in those fields will be allowed to complete their degrees, but new students will not be admitted.

Faculty and students of the theater department, which has 105 students, gathered for a rally Friday on campus.

"We are angry," Ray Pritchard, an instructor in the department, told the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. "We are hurt."

Cutting the department, with its six faculty and staff, will save $420,000 a year.

Provost Warwick Bayly said that eliminating the major in German will allow WSU to offer new majors in Pacific Rim languages. Some German classes will still be offered.

Washington State had previously moved to limit the number of freshmen and transfer students accepted at the Pullman campus this fall. The proposed budget assumes that higher tuition will not reduce enrollment, officials said.

The job losses will be felt most heavily at the main campus in Pullman, but branch campuses in Vancouver, the Tri-Cities and Spokane will also have cuts. Of them, 165 will come from eliminating positions that are currently vacant, but 206 positions will require layoffs. The school has 6,200 employees around the state.

The Vancouver campus will have 29 job losses and $3.3 million in spending cuts. Tri-Cities faces $711,000 in cuts and nine positions eliminated, while Spokane will have $800,000 in cuts and 13 positions eliminated.

Under the plan, the IMPACT Center that focuses on agricultural trade will close; spending on university advertising will be virtually eliminated; "distance" learning centers, which use the Internet to provide access to WSU instruction, will close; and many extension offices across Washington will be consolidated.

In addition, Beasley Coliseum, where the WSU basketball team plays, will be run on a self-supporting basis without state funding. The athletic department's budget will be cut by $350,000.

Custodial and maintenance services also will be reduced.

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On the Net:

Breakdown of budget reductions: http://suggest.french.wsu.edu/main/BudgetPlan.aspx