UNC campuses must submit plans for 50% budget cuts as COVID-19 worst case scenario
The UNC Board of Governors has told chancellors on all 17 campuses to submit plans for cutting their budgets by up to 50% as COVID-19 threatens the fall semester.
Board Chairman Randall Ramsey sent an email to each campus leader earlier this week, multiple academic sources confirm, asking for two budget-cutting scenarios: one by 25% and another by half.
The email, first reported by NC Policy Watch, the news arm of the North Carolina Justice Center, also asked chancellors to report on the impact of closing campuses and canceling fall sports.
“These plans should not be general in nature,” Ramsey wrote, according to the email leaked to the Policy Center. “They should be very specific and include details of which programs will be shuttered, which positions will be furloughed, laid off or eliminated entirely and all other details of how a 25% to 50% spending reduction will be handled.”
The chancellors have until Friday to submit these reports, according to an email from Appalachian State University Dean of Arts and Sciences Neva Specht provided to The News & Observer.
Board Vice Chairwoman Wendy Murphy confirmed Ramsey had sent the email and called the move “just planning.”
“This is nothing new,” Murphy told the N&O Saturday. “We’ve been all along saying, ‘Let’s be prepared.’ I think everybody is with COVID. You don’t know what’s coming next.”
Ramsey did not return a call Saturday.
The UNC system is preparing to open in the fall with a combination of virtual and face-to-face instruction. In May, interim President William Roper said campuses might consider shortened or staggered academic calendars or reduced density in student housing to reduce the pandemic’s spread.
“We are optimistic, leaning in and expecting our students, faculty and staff to return to classrooms, labs and libraries this fall,” Roper told the Board of Governors in May.
NC State University Chancellor Randy Woodson also confirmed the board’s request to plan for a worst-case scenario and said his campus “remains committed to doing all we can to provide a safe campus environment for our students, faculty and staff.”
But for some, the move comes too late and gives UNC campuses too little time to imagine a worst-case scenario.
“They should have been doing financial modeling 90 days ago,” Harry Smith, former board chairman, told the N&O Friday. “It’s unrealistic to ask the campus to do such important work with haste. ... Making it a crisis now is a failure on many fronts and forcing the schools to live this fast will no doubt result in some mistakes.”
Murphy said Saturday that the board’s best hope is opening all 17 UNC campuses for the fall semester.
“With caution and safety measures we can do that,” she said, “but we do need to be prepared. Nothing wrong with that.”
But closing campuses should be a decision for incoming President Peter Hans and the board along with the individual schools, she added.
“It gets messy when everybody is doing their own thing and there could be some scenarios where one campus is doing X and one is doing Y,” Murphy said. “I think the president has to be involved.”
This story was originally published July 18, 2020 at 11:45 AM with the headline "UNC campuses must submit plans for 50% budget cuts as COVID-19 worst case scenario."
