Gov. Tim Kaine is cutting $139 million more from this year’s budget and $230 million more from next year’s budget.
UVA’s piece of that pie, along with all higher education institutions except for community colleges, is 15 percent. That’s an 8 percent increase from the previous cuts assigned by Kaine earlier in the year.
Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Leonard Sandridge said UVA’s state funding will be reduced by $23 million over the next two years: $12.4 million for 2009-2010 in addition to earlier cuts of $10.6 million, for 2008-2009.
“The state reductions and, frankly, the general downturn of the economy have required us here at the University to look at every aspect of our operations in order to respond to those cuts,” he said.
Details on how UVA is trying to cut spending after the break.
UVA says it will manage its workforce through attrition.
According to Sandridge, the University has adopted an aggressive strategy to reduce spending, so that it can “emerge as a stronger institution when the economy turns.”
“We are managing our workforce through attrition and are reducing the size of our workforce in that way,” he said, but stressed that the current financial environment makes it impossible to predict what will happen in the future.
“We are going from quarter to quarter looking at what the situation is,” he said. “At this point in time, we are able to say that we have maintained our commitment to the protection of our employees, and we have no plans at this point for layoffs.”
Sandridge said UVA will be asking existing employees to take on different roles or expand their duties, “as we are, in essence, trying to manage the institution.”
The University will inevitably have to defer some maintenance, limit faculty and staff travel and forgo salary increases, but, Sandridge said, there are no plans for a mid-year tuition increase.