Pictured Above: Here’s how the USF administration summarizes the budget cuts for 2021-2022. Source: Slide presented to trustees on Jan. 8
Courtesy of USF
By Nancy McCann
The plan to reduce the university’s 2021-2022 budget by 8.5 percent was swiftly and unanimously approved by the USF Board of Trustees today.
That equates to a cut of $36.7 million in the portion of USF’s budget funded by state appropriations, which include general revenue and lottery dollars that make up about 60 percent of the university’s operating budget.
Today’s meeting, which lasted less than 15 minutes, followed last week’s trustees’ task force workshop, when the budget reductions were reviewed for each college and the three USF campuses.
Key to what the university calls “strategic budget realignment” is the expectation that there will be no layoffs of permanent faculty members in the fiscal year beginning July 1, but some losses of temporary and part-time teaching jobs and a likely increase in student-faculty ratios.
Only one of the trustees, Tim Boaz, had a question before today’s vote. He wanted to know if the budget will be considered again in June, as has been the practice in previous years.
“Yes,” President Steve Currall answered.
“We’re going to have a lot more information by June,” Currall said. “We’re going to have a strategic plan and we’re going to know the outcome of the legislative session so it would be very prudent for us to revisit at that time and we look forward to doing so.”
