The university estimates it is $4.7 million short of budget projections for fiscal year 2010 and is now forced to look in every corner to save money.

SIU President Glenn Poshard said the budget projection is mainly based on what the university anticipates to receive from the state, as well as tuition increases approved by the Board of Trustees.

Poshard said each college has been asked to make cutbacks to make up for the shortfall.

‘I have a file about three-quarters of an inch thick (to show how colleges have) cut back and continued to operate,’ Poshard said.

Poshard said all of the schools on campus worked together to save more than $9 million in fiscal year 2009 and are being asked to do it again for 2010.

Interim Provost Don Rice said it is important for the university to be conservative with how money is spent and on what it is spent.

‘The guidelines will go out to all administrative offices,’ Rice said. ‘We’ve long been telling the deans to try to be conservative; to try to find deficiencies.’

Rice said he thinks reasons for the budget shortfall are the relatively low increase in tuition and offering out of state students in-state tuition. Students in Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana and Arkansas now have the ability to attend SIUC for the same price as students from Illinois.

University spokesman Rod Sievers said the drop in enrollment could also be a factor in the shortfall.

‘I don’t know what each person represents as far as money to the university, but that’s certainly part of what they call the income fund,’ Sievers said. ‘(The budget shortfall is) probably because of a drop in enrollment.’

Poshard said several factors have gone into the budget shortfall. He said SIUC received $16 million less this year than in 2002, and the university has had to increase tuition and fees substantially in that period, sometimes as high as 9 percent.

And Poshard said it could get worse with the loss of the Monetary Awards Program grant.

‘(We have) 5,200 students that have no state support for education in the spring semester,’ Poshard said. ‘That will have an incredible effect on our enrollment if those students can’t receive the support they need for the spring semester.’

Poshard also said the university would lose the federal stimulus money next June, which accounts for 7 percent of the budget.

Despite the shortfall, Poshard said he is confident the university would rebound from the tough situation.

‘While this is a difficult time for us, we’re going to overcome it,’ Poshard said. ‘We’re going to find a way to solve this MAP funding process.’

Stile Smith can be reached at 536-3311 ext. 259 or [email protected]