The University of Nebraska–Lincoln must cut approximately $27.5 million from its budget by the end of 2024, according to a letter penned Monday by UNL Chancellor Rodney Bennett.
“I want to acknowledge the significance of the challenges we are facing, as well as the cumulative effect of repeated budget processes that extend beyond financial impacts and into areas like employee morale,” Bennett wrote, acknowledging budget challenges facing the entire NU system. “Our revenue has not kept pace with expenses. This is due to a combination of downward trends in state appropriations, net tuition and campus allocations combined with historically high inflation of health care costs as well as property and liability premiums and utilities.”
In order to dig out of this hole, Bennett is prescribing UNL focus on growth of revenue from net tuition, including new enrollment and retention, as well as new and continuing extramural grants and contracts. He says UNL will also review academic programs for potential elimination or mergers.
“Many areas of the campus community will be impacted by this work, including the Office of the Chancellor, ” said Bennett. “Immediate steps will be taken to reduce spending. A Voluntary Separation Incentive Program (VSIP) will likely be offered this fall, with details forthcoming. We are also extending the existing hiring freeze, refilling only those positions most essential to university operations.”
The university’s Academic Planning Committee (APC) will convene and help craft a final budget reduction plan, to be presented to the Office of the President in late October. The NU Board of Regents will take up the plan for consideration at its December meeting, according to Bennett.
“This spring, I asked our leaders to think differently about our budget challenges—to address our current deficit in a strategic way that moves beyond the percentage-based approaches of previous budget reduction processes,” Bennett said. NU’s Executive Leadership Team will rely on certain teaching and research metrics for academic program analysis. “Qualitative assessments” like strength of an academic program, needs of the state, and workforce alignment, will be considered as part of the current process.
The university’s end goal, according to Bennett, is to become more “streamlined” remain a comprehensive, Big Ten, land-grant, research university, and work towards readmission to the Association of American Universities (AAU).
Bennett thanked UNL staff for navigating recent uncertainty. “I am grateful for you, and like you, I want to realize a future for UNL in which faculty and staff are not repeatedly asked to do the same quality and amount of work with fewer resources—but rather are provided the support and opportunity to excel beyond current levels of success,” he wrote.
Read Bennett’s full letter at chancellor.unl.edu.