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By Amy Geiszler-Jones

Chemistry students may have to make do without updated equipment, while fine arts students may have to do with fewer faculty if budget cuts are as severe as predicted.

Miscalculated employee benefits, a possible 1 percent recission of state funds and a tuition shortfall mean WSU may face budget cuts of up to $2.1 million this fiscal year.

The academic affairs division will absorb approximately 75 percent of the cuts, according to a letter Faculty Senate President Jay Mandt wrote to faculty. Administration and finance faces a possible 19 percent cut, student affairs may take a 4 percent hit and the advancement division will absorb 2 percent.

President Beggs is putting about $600,000 from a contingency fund toward the cuts.

The other ways WSU will account for the cuts are being left up to divisional vice presidents.

David Glenn-Lewin, dean of the Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, is holding back plans to modernize technology. Because it is the largest academic unit, the college will also take the biggest hit in academic affairs – an expected $300,000 cut.

"That would get us a lot of computers and microscopes," Glenn-Lewin said.

He had planned to add a half-dozen computers to a new instructional computer lab and to build a second lab with 24 new units in Lindquist Hall. He had also planned to invest in new chemistry equipment and a geographic information system. Part of the president’s contingency fund had been earmarked for new chemistry equipment, as well, until the budget crisis cropped up.

About half the dozen or so vacant LAS faculty positions may go unfilled, he said. Ads for any search will carry a line "subject to budget approval."

In the College of Fine Arts, "there is little if any flexibility in the budget to absorb the real or predicted recissions without seriously considering the mission of the college and the programs it can offer," said Walt Myers, college dean. "We’ve already cut the equivalency of three positions by the current recissions. Beyond that, we don’t know."

The possible cuts are the result of "several separate problems that together constitute a very large problem," Mandt wrote in his letter. The severity of this fiscal year’s cuts depend on legislative action and spring and summer enrollments.

The "problems" Mandt referred to were outlined by Peter Zoller, interim vice president for academic affairs, during a Faculty Senate meeting last month. They are:

• a multimillion dollar miscalculation of state employee benefits. For WSU, the unfunded benefits are about $340,000.

• a 1 percent recission being proposed by Gov. Graves after tax cuts resulted in less revenue than expected. WSU’s cut will be about $620,000. The recission must be approved by the Legislature.

• a tuition shortfall that could be as high as $1.1 million. WSU was down 100 out-of-state and international students this fall semester, which has already left a deficit of about $440,000. Non-resident students pay about 4.3 times more in tuition than Kansas students.

The budget axe may not stop swinging after this fiscal year. WSU and other state-assisted universities are being asked to plan for a 6 percent cut in FY 2001 budgets because of decreasing tax revenues.

"We need to educate others, including the governor, that universities and K-12 education can’t sustain cuts like this and maintain the high-tech work force needed by the state," Zoller told the Faculty Senate, noting universities are falling behind in technology and salaries. "Maybe it’s time for the state of Kansas to look at its priorities."