Re: Colleges Brace for Budget Cuts
From the Current, Dr. Hebert has some positive news. We still have work to do but making progress.
After firing dozens and imposing sweeping cuts, UL Lafayette has cleared all but roughly $2 million of a $25 million recurring deficit, according to the university’s interim president. But officials still must extinguish an accumulated debt of at least $10 million from prior years.
Earlier this month, 51 people were terminated and 19 others were reassigned, the largest loss of personnel since the deficit came to light. In an interview with The Current, interim President Jaimie Hebert said officials have made a lot of progress in shoring up the university’s finances but left the door open for more cuts or layoffs.
“We haven’t determined that yet, but we said all along [that] we want to minimize the human impact if at all possible. If we can do this without losing another person, we will,” Hebert said.
UL launched a new site this week, documenting ongoing budget moves. It includes a feedback form for faculty and is billed as a “living resource.” In a message announcing the page, Hebert said 120 feedback forms had been submitted so far.
Departments across the campus were mandated to slice 10% from their budgets, except Academic Affairs, which is being cut by 5% to limit the impact on instruction.
Budget cuts to date have trimmed all but $2 million from the $25 million figure Hebert has described as a “structural deficit” — essentially recurring expenses that have outgrown revenues. But he clarified that the full target has been $35 million: The structural deficit plus $10 million of debt carried over.
Published: November 6, 11:11 am
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News of the financial straits came after UL’s longtime CFO Jerry Luke LeBlanc stepped down in May, followed by the early retirement of President Joseph Savoie in July. Savoie assumed the role of president emeritus and will join the faculty next year after a seven-month sabbatical.
In June, UL delayed paying $15 million into the university’s retirement system to the following month, punting the cost into the next fiscal year. Hebert said the delay did not reflect a delinquency on the payment. “[The payment] was never in arrears,” he told The Current.
And while Hebert has thus far declined to publicly recriminate how UL’s finances deteriorated, the former provost acknowledged austerity was in the university’s future.
In town halls and media appearances, he has pointed at rising costs over the last decade, coupled with a decline in full-time enrollment, as major factors in the crisis. Meanwhile, UL added 267 new positions since 2015 to its payroll, he said, clarifying a report disclosed to The Current earlier this month tabulating 467 net positions. That figure included replacement hires.
Still, the added manpower grew UL’s annual personnel costs by $40 million, he noted. UL’s payroll is about $10 million a month.
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At least some of those positions were in research. But UL’s pursuit and maintenance of the R1 research designation was not a key factor in the crunch, Hebert said. “Can I point to R1 as one of the causes of this? No,” he said.
With more debt to clear up, Hebert nonetheless insisted UL has come a long way in closing the budget gap.
“I’m not trying to make light of this,” the interim president said of the structural deficit. “It was a significant issue. But the fact that, in three months time, we’ve been able to address a huge portion of a $25 million deficit tells you that it was not insurmountable.”
Hebert deferred some questions to CFO Edwin Litolff, the “numbers man” spearheading cuts and adjustments, a role he has also played recently at UNO. Litolff, who also previously served as vice president of finance at Grambling State University, has not had a public-facing role.
It remains unclear to what extent the ongoing deficit in the athletics division, for instance, is squeezing overall finances. Some of the terminations in the October cuts were in the athletics department. (The Current is awaiting confirmation of the number of athletics staff reductions from the university.)
UL football has accounted for the overwhelming bulk of the athletic division’s $50 million deficit over the last decade. In the last year alone, football lost more than $10 million, according to UL system financial reports.
“We froze 24 [athletic] positions coming into this fiscal year, and while those don’t contribute directly to savings this year, it removed 24 positions from their overall budget,” Hebert told The Current. He said nearly $4.5 million has been eliminated from the athletics budget, which had about $46 million in expenses in the fiscal year ending June 2024. “So the impact is hitting athletics as well.”
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Hebert is a numbers man himself, with bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in statistics — all from UL Lafayette. He joined UL as provost and vice president of Academic Affairs in 2018, the top spot over instruction and faculty, after previously serving as president of Georgia Southern University, and before that as the Sam Houston State University provost and vice president of academic affairs.
Hebert told The Current he has not decided whether he will seek the permanent president’s post: “I’ve not given any thought to it, honestly. At this point, I’m focused on the problem that’s at hand. I really am.”
Hebert also had no information on the status of the search. “That’s run by the system,” he said.
More than three months have passed since Savoie left his post, yet there is still no plan in place for the search, The Acadiana Advocate reported in October. “There are no next steps, nor is there a finalized timeline for finding a permanent leader for the school,” the newspaper reported, citing comments from a system official. The system oversees nine universities.
While signalling that UL is not yet out of the woods, Hebert sought to quiet anxieties about the university’s long-term health, reiterating his commitment to protecting academics.
“We’ve worked our fingers to the bone for the past three months. We’ve looked at all of the data. We’re uncovering everything we have,” he said. “We’re trying, trying our darndest to keep the student experience whole and wholesome at the front end. I feel like for the most part, we have done that.”
Disclosure: Christiaan Mader’s spouse is employed by UL.
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Originally Posted by CajunFun
