Like everyone else, President Schmidly doesn’t know what kind of budget cuts the State Legislature will mandate at its January session.
However, he does know how to deal with the cuts when they arrive.
At the Board of Regents’ Finance and Facilities committee meeting Thursday, Schmidly outlined his priorities in budget reductions and reallocations.
Regent Don Chalmers, chairman of the Finance and Facilities Committee, said in an interview Friday that Schmidly’s presentation was an attempt to remain flexible regardless of the Legislature’s cuts.
“We’ve all read in the newspaper that the shortfall is going to be greater and has been growing recently, and so we’re bracing for that,” he said. “Rather than just wait for the Legislature to tell us how bad it is and then try to react quickly to that, he’s doing some advance planning.”
Schmidly said at the meeting that he and the administration would first “protect the workforce by avoiding layoffs and mandatory furloughs” (see box).
Chalmers said that Schmidly’s presentation sent a clear signal to the board about the administration’s priorities in the coming months.
“I think that the message that President Schmidly tried to (make) come across — and it definitely came across to me — was that we will do everything that we can do to keep our core mission very much intact and not have any interruption whatsoever, and that’s teaching as many students as we can and research,” Chalmers said.
On top of avoiding layoffs and furloughs, Schmidly’s priorities entail discarding costs that aren’t deemed directly related to the academic mission of the University.
Chalmers said the extent to which Schmidly’s priorities implemented is up to the Legislature.
“How far down that list and how deeply cuts may have to take place solely depends what comes out of the Legislature,” he said.
Schmidly also introduced the concept of “flattening” his administration by not immediately filling vacant administrative posts. Schmidly first introduced this strategy in November 2008 when the administration implemented a hiring freeze.
For example, Marc Nigliazzo, vice president of Rio Rancho Operations, resigned from his position in June, and his position has not yet been filled.
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The recent departures of University Counsel Patrick Apodaca and UNM Foundation President John Stropp also raised questions — specifically from Regent Jamie Koch — about consolidating the UNM administration. Since the UNM Foundation is independent of the University and Apodaca’s resignation is a personnel matter, Chalmers said such conversation was inappropriate at the meeting.
“One of the bullet points that Dr. Schmidly talked about was consolidation of the administration,” Chalmers said. “The talk about specific personnel matters in an F and F meeting is totally inappropriate.”
Chalmers said the regents and the administration need to explore alternatives to tuition increases. In Schmidly’s list of priorities, keeping “tuition affordable for our students,” is fourth from the top.
“If we grow our enrollment and get more funds because of growth, that’s a way to fill the gap as well,” Chalmers said. “There are other ways to fill the gap than just raising tuition. Not raising tuition and trying to keep what we do affordable is a high priority with the administration and certainly a high priority with all the regents. So we will look for other ways to fill that.”
