UWindsor faces $5.2 million budget deficit
By Hannah Larking
News Editor
December 3, 2008
 The University of Windsor has announced that it is now facing a nearly $5.2 million budget deficit and has decided to defer balancing the books for another three years.
According to Stephen Willets, vice president of administration and finance at the University of Windsor, the board of governors has approved a three-year budget strategy that will commence in the approaching 2009-10 year. This delay will allow for realignment targets to be established annually with the intention of achieving a balanced budget by 2011-12.
UWindsor’s board of governors met last Tuesday, Nov. 18 to discuss plans for the new strategy. At the meeting, it was reported that $800,000 had been added to the $4.3 million shortfall that had been estimated two months earlier.
“The process that is being undertaken is one of realignment, which may include reductions in budgets as well as opportunities for revenue enhancement,” Willetts said, adding that it was too early to comment on where specific reductions would be made.
The university is still in the process of recovering from the Windsor University Faculty Association strike in September, which is speculated to cost the university a total of $3 million over the next three years.
Tiffany Gooch, president of the University of Windsor Students’ Alliance (UWSA), attributed this new budget plan to U of W president, Alan Wildeman. “The strategy… comes, I believe, from the president himself, and his belief that we just can’t attempt to realign the budget in one year—it’s not possible; it would be detrimental to the quality of education at the University of Windsor,” she explained.
Gooch acknowledged that the deficit will inevitably have an effect on student fees. Currently, 43.8 per cent of the operating budget is covered by student fees and tuition; this number is expected to be hiked 6.2 per cent in the coming years. This total of 50 per cent, compared with the provincial average of 40.8 per cent, and national average of 34.2 per cent, could leave many students upset.
“If we were to [attempt to balance] this year, students’ [tuition] would have been really affected next year, instead of the small hit they’ll get each year,” Gooch added.
Still, the university faces a cap implemented by the provincial government that restricts the amount that they can increase tuitions.
“The University [of Windsor], along with all universities in Ontario, operates within the provincial government’s tuition fee framework,” Willetts explained. “In developing the 2009-10 operating budgets, the university will develop proposals in line with the provincial fee framework.”
Gooch also said that cuts will have to be made across the board. “Every faculty will have to find savings. They try to begin with internal savings—so, their own travel budgets, their own miscellaneous budgets, and things like that before they start to do things that will affect students,” she explained.
While Wildeman has said that there are no staff lay offs planned, he added that current job openings may remain vacant. Willetts said that the board plans to defer a number of one-time investments made in the 2008-09, to ensure that the university achieves a funded, balanced position at the end of this current financial period.
With these speculated tuition hikes, students might be curious as to whether or not they will be getting more for their money. Gooch said the administration has an obligation to students to lobby to increase funding or to find ways to cut its own spending without harming the quality of education.
“The university needs to not only provide a range of educational programming which meets students’ academic needs, but also has to ensure that these programs are delivered in suitable premises with the appropriate infrastructure,” said Willets.
“The operating budget provides recurrent funding for the delivery of programs while capital projects are funded through one time funds received by the university from such sources as the provincial government or through fund raising efforts,” he added.
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