UAS Sitka has a current enrollment of 900 students, 80-percent of whom attend online.
The University of Alaska budget is back in play, as the legislature heads into special session. Gov. Walker has proposed restoring $7-million to the system, which is roughly half of the amount needed to meet negotiated raises in union contracts and other salary increases. While it’s not clear yet where that money will come from — if lawmakers agree to restore it — regional campuses like Sitka’s are already battened down, and hoping to ride out the fiscal storm in ship shape.
The big numbers to keep in mind are these: The University Regents requested $970-million for the coming year. The legislature’s offer, as of the close of the regular session, was $75-million dollars less.
Jeff Johnston, director for the University of Alaska Southeast Sitka campus, says he and his counterparts in Juneau and Ketchikan don’t really know yet how that budget reduction will be “funneled down” to their individual campuses. But he’s not holding his campus in budget limbo either. Johnston says he’s braced for a cut of 6-10 percent. That could mean $150,000-200,000 in operating money. The potential impact of the union contracts and salary increases is murkier, depending on whether the legislature agrees to come up with the $7-million the governor wants, or just agrees to the pay increases, but forces the University to find the money internally. Johnston says that either way, it’s about $850,000-worth of uncertainty right now for the Sitka, Juneau, and Ketchikan campuses combined.
Johnston has cut one staff position and performed what he calls “a vigorous program review” to trim course offerings that are not attracting students. UAS has suspended admissions to the bachelor’s degree program in Art, for instance. Also suspended are the Associate and Masters degrees in Early Childhood Education. Some of the courses in these programs remain, however, serving students in other tracks.
Johnston is not cutting any faculty. “They’re our revenue drivers,” he says. “I think of them as pilots. Without a pilot, the plane doesn’t fly.”
And that strategy seems to be working. According to Johnston there are 900 students currently enrolled in the Sitka campus, with 80-percent of them taking classes online. Over the course of the year, including summer, he expects a head count of around 2,500 students. They’re studying professional disciplines like Health Care, Law Enforcement, or Fisheries Technology, or working toward a traditional two-year Associate of Arts Degree typical of any community college program.
A 5-percent tuition hike, Johnston says, has helped his campus “blunt” the effects of any cuts. He and other administrators are also taking some unpaid time off. University system officers will be furloughed for 10 days starting July 1. Senior administrators will be furloughed for 7 days, and non-union academic leaders will be furloughed for 5. In all, about 170 administrators will be affected.
UAS-Sitka’s budget runs between $7.5-million to $8-million annually. There are 20 faculty members, 30 support staff, and up to eighty adjunct professors on the payroll at any given time.
A final component of the campus’ budget picture is federal. UAS-Sitka has just finished a five-year Title III grant from the US Department of Education supporting Native students from Alaska and Hawaii. The grant is worth up to $800,000 a year. Johnston says he and his staff are preparing a request for another five years.
