On Thursday Sept. 12, the Southern Illinois University System Board of Trustees approved the fiscal year 2025 budget while the Carbondale campus is operating on a deficit of nearly 9.5 million dollars. 

“What you’ll hear today… is our best attempt to kind of manage those continued issues most universities have,” President Daniel Mahony said to the board on Sept. 11 at an executive meeting. “We have some lingering issues that come from years of disinvestment from the state as well as declines of enrollment that we have to address.”    

Advertisement

With a revenue of $408,698,700 and $418,186,600 in expenditures and transfers, SIU’s Carbondale campus is working with a $9,487,900 deficit. 

Tuition is just under 19% of the revenue in this budget. The general revenue, which comes from the state and taxes, is 26.5% of the revenue.

The largest expense for the university is “Personal Services”, defined by James Madison University as expenditures related to departmental staffing, including compensation; salaries and wages (full-time and part-time); and all related benefits, taking  up 47% of expenses. The second biggest expense is “Contractual Services”, which is 20.7% of expenses. 

Advertisement*

Even so, Mahony says that SIU is in a better position than a lot of universities. 

“It’s certainly better than what we are seeing nationally…I think 2% of universities cease to exist. A large number of others have had to make drastic cuts, including cutting tenure faculty members, which is an unusual thing for universities to do,” Mahony said. 

“I’m pleased to say that for FY24 we are in a fairly good position,” SIU Carbondale Chancellor Austin Lane said. “The biggest two variables in our university budget is enrollment, as President Mahony noted we’ve had pretty stable support from the state, which we are grateful for.”

Even with the increase in enrollment at both of the universities this year, there is still a backlog of struggles, including budget cuts, the system is trying to overcome. 

“With respect for FY25, our focus will be enrollment and retention,” Lane said. 

Staff reporter Mylee Walker can be reached at [email protected]

Advertisement