Public universities in Illinois are getting some financial relief as part of the state’s new stop-gap spending measure. That will help the schools, but they still face a great deal of uncertainty.
“Does this change anything? It doesn’t change anything. It allows us to continue operations as we have.”
Matt Bierman is the Budget Director at Western Illinois University. The school laid off more than 100 employees this spring because of the state budget impasse. But the sudden influx of cash does not mean Western can reverse those layoffs.
“We will over the next 30 days be making decisions about positions that need to be filled again based upon campus needs for the fall semester. So this in itself does not change the layoffs. They’re not coming back tomorrow, we’re not going to call them back tomorrow. But we are evaluating what we do need for the fall semester.”
He says a hiring freeze remains in effect. Bierman is looking at this as an 18-month budget cycle that includes all of fiscal year ’16 and the first half of fiscal year ’17.
Bierman says Western would normally expect to receive around $72 million dollars in state money during that period. Instead, it will have to work with just $46 million. Bierman says Western might be able to get through the remainder of the calendar year with that money and revenue from this fall’s tuition and fees.
But he says it’ll be tight… and the school might have to resort to using its facility bonds to pay for daily operations… which would be a drastic step just to keep the doors open.