By Lynn Binnie
Whitewater Banner volunteer staff
whitewaterbanner@gmail.com

On August 3 UW-Oshkosh Chancellor Andrew Leavitt announced that major staffing changes would be needed in order to address an “unprecedented” $18 million annual structural deficit. He referred to a “perfect storm” that includes declining numbers of high school graduates attending college and declining state support of the UW System, resulting in increasing reliance on tuition, which had been frozen for in-state students for ten years until the coming school year.

According to the Wisconsin State Journal, Leavitt indicated that the university plans to cut about 200 non-faculty staff and administrators, while requiring many other employees, including faculty, to take furlough days. “The cuts amount to about 20% of university employees,” according to the paper.

In response to the Oshkosh announcement, UW-Whitewater Chancellor Corey A. King issued a statement later the same day to the university community indicating, “The purpose of my message to you today is to ensure that you have the facts about our fiscal picture at UW-Whitewater and to underscore my continued confidence in our budget moving forward.”

King stated that the structural deficit for the 2022-23 year had been anticipated to be $8.5 million, but, “Due to prudent fiscal management and annual savings strategies, we reduced the actual 2022-23 deficit to less than $4.5 million by the end of the year.” While acknowledging that there is still much to be done, the chancellor stated that the goal is to balance the budget within five years; meanwhile, reserves will cover the shortfalls. One positive note is that enrollment for the upcoming fall semester is anticipated to exceed projections on both campuses.

The UW System had asked for a $262 million increase in operating budget funding for the 2023-25 biennium, and Gov. Evers had recommended a $305 million increase. The legislature actually cut the system budget by $32 million in the document that the governor ultimately signed.

Chancellor King’s message is reproduced below.

Message from Chancellor King

Dear UW-Whitewater colleagues,

Earlier today, UW-Oshkosh announced layoffs and furloughs as part of a plan to address an “unprecedented” $18 million structural deficit that the university is facing. As you know, higher education institutions across Wisconsin have been navigating financial challenges in recent years. Our thoughts are with our colleagues at UW-Oshkosh during what is an extremely difficult time.

This news is prompting questions about the finances at other universities. The purpose of my message to you today is to ensure that you have the facts about our fiscal picture at UW-Whitewater and to underscore my continued confidence in our budget moving forward.

Like most UW campuses, UW-Whitewater has a structural deficit, which means a university needs to use its financial reserves to balance out the budget at the end of the year. We communicated this figure to the UW System as part of our annual budget submission. 

As we communicated in past budget town halls, we planned our structural deficit to be $8.5 million at the beginning of the 2022-23 fiscal year. Due to prudent fiscal management and annual savings strategies, we reduced the actual 2022-23 deficit to less than $4.5 million by the end of the year.

Our goal is to eliminate annual deficits within the next five years. We are making strong progress to that goal, and will utilize reserves to cover the deficits.

In the meantime, we are making strategic reinvestments back into the university, including new recruitment and retention efforts. We are hitting or exceeding the benchmarks that we normally use to track our enrollment. Current projections indicate a larger student population for Fall 2023 at the Whitewater and Rock County campuses, which would result in even higher tuition revenue than budgeted. 

Additional strategies we have undertaken to stay on pace to eliminate our deficit include: 

• Using an institution-wide position vacancy review to determine which vacant positions (particularly those that have remained vacant for some time) can be eliminated from the budget, reallocated to drive growth, or combined with other positions to obtain budgetary savings.
• Utilizing fully the General Purpose Revenue fringe pool to achieve annual savings.
• Partnering with the UW-Whitewater Foundation to identify opportunities for external funding of existing programs/positions.
• Reviewing facility usage to ensure efficient and effective use of spaces with the expectation of cost savings.

As you can see, the efforts to strengthen our fiscal picture are university wide, and I want to express my gratitude to all faculty and staff who have creatively, diligently and thoughtfully collaborated to get us to this point. We still have much work to do. Reducing our budget deficit remains a top priority. It will take all of us to actively strive toward continuous improvement as we reach a balanced budget.

Corey A. King, Ed.D
Chancellor