In a recent blog post, I wrote about UNC President Erskine Bowles' desire to keep budget cuts to the public university system lower than it appears the state is headed.

Well, here are some specifics, via our local public universities here in the Triangle, on how the cuts might affect campus services. The information comes from a 24-page report to the UNC system's Board of Governors that you can read in its entirety by clicking the link below this post.

Highlights:

At N.C. Central University, a seven percent cut to next year's budget amounts to a loss of $6.6 million and would bring about, among other things:

• The elimination of 54 positions, 22 of which are faculty.

•  Elimination of 340 class sections

• Reduction of 2.5 police department positions, 6 housekeeping positions and 2 groundskeepers.

At N.C. State, a seven percent cut is about $36 million. Specific cuts would include:

• 404 positions eliminated including about 70 faculty slots.

• 180 class sections eliminated, most in general education courses affecting all students.

• Course reductions in biological sciences, College of Education and engineering labs.

• Library will close for third shift, cancel 1,200 journals and buy 4,200 fewer books annually.

• Study abroad and community engagement programs will be cut by one quarter.

• Emerging programs in textiles, design, management, humanities and social sciences will be eliminated.

• The Agricultural Research Service would lose 78 positions, all of which are filled.

At UNC Chapel Hill, a seven percent cut amounts to a loss of $40 million. Among the cuts:

• 267 positions eliminated, 107 of which are faculty slots. 62 faculty slots are in health affairs.

• Loss of allied health faculty would lead to an increase in the shortage of physical therapists, radiology assistants and audiologists.

• 372 fewer course sections could be offered.

 The UNC system's Board of Governors will discuss all of this next week.

Documents:

We've been writing a lot about budget cuts in higher education lately and want to hear your stories.

If you work at or attend a local university here in the Triangle and have a story to tell, observation to make or complaint to rant about, we'd love to hear it.

Send me an email at Eric.Ferreri@newsobserver.com.

UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp is standing by his recent hiring of an outside consultant that will look for ways for the university to cut its budget.

The consultant is being paid for by an anonymous private donor, and the university has not said how much the firm is being paid. At a community meeting Monday, Thorp fielded several questions about the Bain contract, eventually pointing out that because of the anonymous nature of the gift funding the study, he can't say as much as people want him to about it.

He said in part: 

"It was offered to us under the terms we accepted, which I understand not everybody is wild about. I felt, and I still feel it gives us the opportunity to come up with some ideas...it might provide additional insight that we might not otherwise get. And it doesn't cost the university a thing."

Thorp has made public some of the documentation laying out the work Bain will do for the university. Two of those documents are attached to this blog post.

 You can read a full accounting of today's community meeting in Wednesday's Chapel Hill News. For now, a couple tidbits:

• A $445,000 employee assistance fund for workers who may be laid off has been funded in this way: $100,000 from the athletic department; $70,000 from the cancellation of the annual Tar Heel Bus Tour; $250,000 from a private gift; and $25,000 from a private gift from Thorp and his wife.

Also - During his comments, Thorp mentioned commencement when discussing events that may be nixed in order to save money. What he meant, according to a university spokesman, was that a Polk Place reception that traditionally follows the May commencement has been cut, but not commencement itself.

Documents:

If you work at UNC Chapel Hill and are wondering how the ongoing economic crisis might affect you, I've got a link for you.

Click here for UNC's budget website. The 2/27/09 item titled "Submissions used for University Response to President Bowles' Request for State Budget Impacts at 3%, 5% and 7% Levels" is an 87-page document that summarizes how the university's various departments and divisions would deal with budget cuts. 

You'd best jump directly to the 7 percent levels, but as Chancellor Holden Thorp cautioned today in a letter to the university community, these are still all just scenarios. Decisions have not yet been made.

Across the nation, public universities are slicing and dicing their way through one of the worst budget years in recent memory.

But the methods vary. Here are what three states are doing to help their universities.

• In Missouri, the governor has made a pledge to give public universities as much funding this year as they received a year ago if they agreed not to raise tuition and fees.

• In Maryland, a proposed state budget would actually increase money to higher education.

• In Oregon, legislators are pushing a stimulus package that would include $88 million for higher education in that state.

For months now, public universities have been crafting budget-cut plans at various levels - the sort administrators might classify as bad, really bad, and just-plain-awful.

Along with a one-time cut of six percent this year, UNC system campuses have been asked to figure out what they might do with permanent cuts of 3, 5 and 7 percent to their operating budgets.

Fun, huh?

At a campus trustee meeting this morning, UNC Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp gave a cold dose of reality to this budget-cutting game. Here's what would happen, in part, on his campus if UNC-CH had to cut its budget permanently at the 5 percent level.

• 121 faculty positions would be lost.

• 86 staff positions would be lost, though most cuts would hit jobs currently vacant.

• 282 undergraduate courses would be eliminated.

To this, Thorp said: "Our class sections with more than 100 students would hit an all-time high. So those of you who follow rankings in glossy magazines know that would be significant."

Interesting discussion today at UNC Chapel Hill's Faculty Council meeting. Basically, a brainstorming session on how best a university should approach cutting budgets.

(As you may have read, the state's in a bit of a budget bind these days, and public universities have been asked to project budget cuts for the current year of up to 7 percent.)

So faculty members spent some time today tossing around ideas for how to deal with these cuts. They range from ideas that are either already in place or likely to be used, like freezing vacant positions, cutting programs, delaying capital projects and suspending faculty searches, to somewhat more radical ideas, like reducing enrollment, merging departments or, the one suggestion that drew hearty laughter, using money drawn from the athletics department for academic uses.

A summary of the ideas batted around the room Friday:

After voting to extend their meeting to 11:30 p.m. Monday night, the
county commissioners voted 4-1 to cut nonprofit funding by 3 percent
for the current fiscal year, and to cut the entire $550,000
appropriation for open space and farmland acquisition.

Last week, county commissioners Chairman Michael Page predicted the board would be "bombarded" when it held its public hearing on budget cuts.

Maybe, maybe not. The cuts which County Manager Mike Ruffin has proposed take 3 percent off the current appropriations for nonprofits and Durham Public Schools, among other money-saving trims.

But so far, commissioners Joe Bowser and Becky Heron say they've heard almost no reactions from constituents. Heron had publicly objected to cutting funds for the Durham Animal Shelter, but sounded reconciled this morning.

"People are accepting this," she said. "Everybody needs to work together."

Some sobering news this morning from the UNC system's Board of Governors, which is discussing the university's financial situation, budget cuts and tuition and fees.

For months now, UNC system and public university campus officials have been looking at ways to cut budgets this year. They started with 2 percent cuts, and then added an extra 2 percent. For a while, they were expecting - or, more to the point, hoping - that budget cuts this fiscal year would be one-time cuts.

Meaning, the cuts would only have to be made during this fiscal year, but that money could reappear in the following year's budget, so campuses wouldn't have to discontinue programs or lay employees off permanently.

But the language appears to be changing now, as the state's economic indicators continue to be bleak.

Quoth Rob Nelson, the UNC system's vice president for finance, when discussing a five percent cut to the university's current operating budget: "They're not permanent cuts yet, but we know they're gonna be."

Added UNC President Erskine Bowles: "Once a cut goes in, it rarely gets restored... We have a five percent reversion for one year. Going forward, that five percent will be permanent."

UNC system officials say they're now working out scenarios for budget cuts reaching as high as 7 percent.  In dollar figures, that 7 percent cut amounts to $175 million across the UNC system.