Sent: 2010-11-15
From: William L. Perry, President
To: Employees
Subject: Budget update
Dear Colleagues:
I am writing to bring a budget update to the campus. As you know, the state's fiscal situation has changed little over the past year and its impact on our budgeting and cashflow is still with us. Regardless, we were able to meet all of our obligations over the past fiscal year, and continue to meet our obligations to date. Thus, Fiscal Year 2010 (July 2009 through June 2010) is now past and we are four months into Fiscal Year 2011.
We have recently received our final Fiscal Year 2010 general revenue payment, and no more is due us. We have received $382,000 of our Fiscal Year 2011 general revenue appropriation of $47,413,000. We do not expect more payments on our Fiscal Year 2011 appropriation until after January 1, 2011. We expect next spring to be a re-run of spring 2010, in which we will be receiving appropriations in a "just in time" fashion. The main difference between last spring and this coming spring is that our appropriations are about $3,150,000 less this fiscal year. In order to cope with that 6% drop in general revenue and meet our contractual obligations we have taken the following actions. First, our overall operational budgets for Fiscal Year 2011 were loaded at 75% of Fiscal Year 2010. Second, we are continuing our budgetary actions as announced in January 2010. As a reminder, those prior budgetary actions are:
*Hiring is frozen, with the possibility of exceptions, which must be approved by the president.
*Operational spending is being reduced or postponed.
*Equipment purchases are frozen, with the possibility of exceptions, which must be approved by the respective vice president.
*Operational cost savings will continue to be implemented.
*Non-safety-related maintenance is being reduced or postponed.
*Travel reimbursement is being reduced or postponed.
We continue to press the case for EIU for enhanced state funding. Among Illinois public master's universities, we are the strongest performing, and that deserves recognition and legislative action to enhance our funding. Our performance depends directly on how each of us upholds Eastern's values of excellence, personal relationships, service, and opportunity. Thank you for your continued service in support of excellence in higher education at EIU.
Sincerely,
William L. Perry
President
