It is no surprise to anyone that almost everyone is experiencing bleak economic
times globally, nationally and locally. High prices for oil and food, stock market
downturns, unemployment and a credit crisis are all but of few contributors to what
is now being called a recession.
At the state level, the University of California (UC) system is feeling the brunt
of a budget adopted in the fall by the state government that requires that it absorb
a $148 million shortfall. Threatened is the UC’s ability to provide
the quality services to students. To read more about what the UC campuses are facing,
please click on the attached links to the 93106 articles by UC President Mark G.
Yudof and UCSB Chancellor Henry Yang.
At UCSB we are taking proactive steps to ensure that cost efficiency measures are
realized in all departments to help meet this foreboding fiscal challenge. The Educational
Opportunity Program (EOP) is no exception. We have been instructed by our divisional
administrator to expect budget cuts ranging from 4-15% and to consider
that these cuts may continue for two to three more years. Recent reports place the
cuts at the higher end. Cuts of this size threaten to significantly reduce EOP’s
budget resulting in a reduction of programs that service not only to low income
and first-generation students, but all students who may have participated in EOP
co-sponsored events, such a the International Food Fair, the Dessert Fest and similar
social/cultural programs. Funding cuts would impact student employment for STEP,
FSSP, Cultural Interns and Peer Advisors.
EOP has begun to tighten its belt by minimizing expenditures in all areas. These
methods are straight forward efforts to sustain future services that are dear to
EOP and its students. Some of the reduction strategies currently implemented in
EOP are as follow:
- Reduction to social/cultural programming and to student staff hours for the winter
and spring quarters, 2009.
- Reduction in the number of student staff hires for next year is being considered.
- Career staff hiring and non-essential travel is suspended until further notice.
- Reduction in office supplies and co-sponsorship funds.
- Increased inter-departmental collaboration will be considered when implementing
programs.
- Career staff is exploring a reduction in work hours or furloughs.
What are we doing to prepare for these cuts? A significant and proactive approach
that EOP has put into motion with the hope of reducing the impact of funds lost
to budget cuts by placing a Fee Initiative on the spring Campus-wide
Elections ballot. This entails placing a referendum on the undergraduate student
ballot to seek students’ support for services fee through a student vote. Fees received
through ballot vote will help ensure the EOP academic, social and cultural programming
designed to meet student centered retention efforts will continue into the future.
A proposed $3.10
fee increase is being sought by EOP to help replace funds projected to be lost to
budget cuts.