MU budget proposal includes cutting graduate jobs, increasing police force

The University of Missouri-Columbia campus is looking at a nearly $60 million shortfall in its budget.

The proposal was written by Interim Chancellor Garnett Stokes. She’s been on the job about two weeks while the university searches for a permanent chancellor.

Stokes’ proposal includes cutting more than 300 jobs. 147 of which are currently vacant and 181 are occupied.

“The university is primarily a human institution: 80 percent of our costs are in personnel,” Stokes wrote in a cover letter for the proposed budget. “There is simply no way to meet the requirements without reducing jobs.”

The cuts include 64.5 Full Time Employee positions for faculty and 40.5 for staff. It also includes 13.7 currently filled part time positions.

Graduate student positions will also be cut. There are currently 20 open spaces that will be cut and 14.8 FTE positions that will be cut. Removing those graduate positions will save the university about $1.1 million they can then use to continue to pay for graduate student waivers and health care.

The departments that would lose graduate positions include 10 vacant graduate positions in arts and science; 8.3 vacant and 7.5 occupied graduate spots in education; 5.3 occupied graduate positions in journalism; 1.5 unoccupied and .5 occupied graduate positions in the Provost’s office; and 1.5 occupied graduate positions in medicine.

State appropriations decreased more than $14 million as wells as the removal of a “line item” that will cost MU about $5 million.

Enrollment is also expected to decrease, costing the university about $16 million. It will make some of that back with tuition increases, bringing in about $7 million.

For the long-term, Stokes proposed several cost-saving measures in colleges and departments across the campus.

One suggestion is for “additional reductions to operating expenses” for the Arts and Sciences Department with a targeted savings of $163,784.

Other suggestions included “operating cost restrictions/savings” for both facility operation and energy management “achieved through space and building review” with a total targeted savings of $5.8 million.

Stokes also outlined “strategic investment” plans for the university.

Increasing the police force was one investment Stokes included in her budget proposal. “We are interested in keeping the size of the police force in alignment with the overall campus size,” Stokes wrote. “This is the second year of a three-year plan to change the size of the force.” That investment is estimated at $500,000.

Stokes also included investment for doctoral student stipends. “The minimum stipends we had been offering for half-time doctoral students on assistantships had been lagging behind other research universities making it difficult for us to recruit as successfully as we would like to,” Stokes wrote. “This is the second year of a two-year plan to bring our minimum stipend to a level consistent with the Excellence we are looking for in our graduate programs.” That investment is estimated at $5 million.

Stokes also included a $1.6 million investment for student recruitment. “Through strategic hiring of additional recruiters we will work to increase the number of prospective students who are aware of the experience Mizzou offers as they consider their options for higher education,” Stokes wrote.