Today I joined the other 10 State University System presidents in Tallahassee to express concern over the magnitude of reductions to university budgets. We are appreciative that both the House and Senate are plugging much of the recurring reductions to our base with non-recurring federal stimulus dollars, tuition increases and local flexibility for tuition differential. However, the proposed recurring cuts on the House side would be a difficult challenge to overcome when the non-recurring funds diminish.

Thus, today, presidents joined together to ask the House legislative leadership to consider moving closer to the Senate budget proposal for higher education; and we remain optimistic that this will occur. We also have early indications that the salary reductions currently being proposed may not apply to university employees. I outlined the House and Senate proposals at my April 6 Town Hall Meeting. All of these details remain current and are listed on our budget Web site at http://uwf.edu/president/budget/budgetinfo.cfm#state.

The budget must be finalized by Tuesday in order for the session to end as scheduled on May 1. We will know more details next week. Until then, please stay tuned and know that we are doing everything we can for UWF faculty, staff and students.

Sincerely,

Judy Bense

President, University of West Florida

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