One of Gov.-elect Bruce Rauner’s proposed budgets could result in major losses for the university and higher tuition and fees for students.

The potential plan could mean serious cuts in services and programs provided by the university, President Randy Dunn wrote in an email to faculty and staff Wednesday. This comes after an email was sent Nov. 24 to public universities from the Illinois Board of Higher Education regarding the new administration’s budget.

The original email sent by James Applegate, executive director of the board, said all state agencies, including public universities, should draft a budget that accounts for a 20 percent cut in state appropriations. Applegate said this is a worst-case scenario and not a certainty, but agencies should plan for a significant cut.

Dunn outlined some of the possibilities that could follow that kind of decrease in state funding.

“I won’t even attempt to sugarcoat the potential impact of such a reduction to our budget,” he wrote.

A 20 percent cut would leave the campus’ state appropriations at $83 million and the School of Medicine’s at $31 million, for a total of $117 million.

“The last time the two campuses saw that level of state funding was a quarter of a century ago,” Dunn wrote.

In 2002, 68 percent of campus’ operating budget came from state-appropriated funds. Today it is less than 50 percent.

“There is no question that a 20 percent reduction in our state appropriation will dramatically affect student services, academic programming, and in turn, student success,” Dunn wrote.

He said a cut of this size would eliminate around 325 positions at SIUC alone, and could result in an indefinite hiring freeze.

Previous reductions in state appropriations for the university caused increases in tuition, hiring freezes, delays in hiring and replacing essential equipment and elimination of materials for faculty and students.

One collegiate unit has already eliminated office phones for faculty in all of its departments, while voice mail has been eliminated in other units, according to the email.

Dunn said a cut of this magnitude to the university’s budget would also have an impact on the regional economy.

“When you look at the use of those state appropriations in our SIU budget, a great deal of that plows back into the local economy,” he said in a separate interview.

He also said elimination of whole programs may be considered, as across-the-board cuts have weakened the university.

“We may be forced to undertake a very close examination of our full range of programs and services, setting priorities and potentially making very difficult choices,” he said.

Although nothing will be decided until the Illinois General Assembly meets with Rauner in February, news of a major cut in state funding did not come as a shock, Dunn wrote.

“We’ve known that the time would come when we would be forced to critically review and maybe even change our operational model,” he said. “That day may have arrived for us in the Prairie State.”