In an email sent on November 19th, President Mark Emmert discussed how the University hopes to respond to the budget deficit and continuing downward spiral in state tax revenue.

According to Governor Gregoire, "Our projected shortfall for the remainder of the biennium is an additional $2.6 billion, for a total gap this two-year budget period of $11.6 billion. That's almost a third of our last budget. We have not seen a shortfall like this in 80 year."

After the unprecedented 26% cut in our state funding, the UW made some hard choices. Among those, wrote Emmert, were "eliminating 850 mostly administrative and staff jobs, closing branch libraries and writing centers, freezing pay, dramatically reducing faculty hiring, and impacting the experience our students have in their academic programs."

Meanwhile, tuition has increased 14%. For the first time in our history, the UW receives more funding from tuition revenue than from the State, the most recent development in a 20-year trend.

To address the latest state revenue shortfall, Emmert outlined three responses:

1. Use our existing resources as efficiently as possible,
2. Manage undergraduate tuition, and
   
3. Greater management and business process flexibility.

Activity-based budgeting (ABB) is another idea that the UW is looking into, according to Gavin Verhey of The Daily. "With ABB," Verhey writes, "sources of revenue are quantitatively aligned with the departments and activities they are supporting."

Additional Resources

Revenue shortfall:
Seattle Times article
UW State Relations Director blog post
Office of Financial Management release

Activity-based budgeting:
Faculty Senate Chair blog

Other:
New York Times article, "Regents Raise College Tuition in California by 32 Percent"