WESTFIELD – Westfield State University’s Board of Trustees were faced with a “good problem,” according to Westfield State President Dr. Evan Dobelle last night.
Left to contend with a $6 million gap between student and state funding, the board voted to approve up to a 5.4 percent increase, roughly $397.00 per student, in general fees to balance the school’s budget for fiscal year 2014.
This increase will also be the lowest increase in fees in the past six years, according to WSU.
Depending on approval of the budget proposed by the Commonwealth’s House of Representatives last week, the fees may be nixed and then refunded to students in time for the 2014 spring semester.
At a time when the state Senate is placing more emphasis on transportation-related funding, the House is looking to keep education as it’s main priority, which makes the budget proposed by Milton Santiago, Westfield State’s vice president of administration and finance, a bit up in the air at the moment.
“We’ve never been in a situation like this,” Santiago said prior to unveiling the tentative budget, which was modeled based on the Senate’s proposal. “I am asking you to vote to increase fees, while at the same time voting to not increase fees, while at the same time voting to increase fees a little bit, due to this type of uncertainty that we have.”
In an effort to shore up even more funds to put towards the upcoming fiscal year’s proposed “lean” operating budget, around $92 million, without delving into the school’s reserve funds, Santiago’s budget proposed 100 percent use of school’s auxiliary revenue, about $4.1 million, to come from sources such as the campus bookstore and on-campus vending machines, a drastic measure which serves as a barometer for the challenging economic times Massachusetts is currently faced with.
“Normally, these funds aren’t used to support 100 percent of your operations, but rather, support some special activity that you may want,” Santiago said. “What we get from the state and what we get from the students are still insufficient to cover operating costs. If we weren’t doing that, we would have to come up with $4.1 million somewhere else.”
“The difference between the House and Senate budget for us is roughly $4 million,” said Vice President of Government Relations for Westfield State Ken Lemanski. “The House’s budget would include full funding for collective bargaining, and an extra $1.9 million specifically for Westfield State.”
Lemanski went on to explain that the House’s reasoning for the extra funding for Westfield is being done under initiation, spurred on by the University of Massachusetts, of the state legislature to fund public higher education on a 50-50 basis, with half of the public higher education funding coming from students, and the other half coming from the state.
According to Lemanski, the $1.9 million in the House plan is part of a three year plan to help the school reach it’s own 50-50 goal.
With bills for the fall semester set to be delivered to students during the first week of July, the board realized there may be the need to issue refunds to students, either in the form of a check or an increase in Owl Bucks, a popular program sponsored by the University which enables students to pay for laundry and food services on campus, in addition to a growing number of local businesses and eateries in the city.
This particular problem ia a welcome one for Dr. Dobelle and his board of trustees.
“We’re going to hope for the best and plan for the worst,” said Dobelle. “It seems to me, in confidence, that it will be either the House’s budget or something between (the House and the Senate). It’s not going to be the Senate’s proposal, but we have an obligation to go to the worst case scenario.”
Dobelle also doubts that Governor Deval Patrick will reject the House’s bill, which he has ten days after it’s passed to do.
“I don’t know any governor who wouldn’t be willing to get in front of the cameras on a national story and be the first governor to invest in higher education and not have an increase in fees,” said Dobelle. “I can’t imagine it.”
A summary for the tentative budget for the 2014 fiscal year as proposed by Santiago also made room for contractual pay increases for employees, and an expected enrollment of 4,675 students, an increase of over 200 students from last fiscal year.
