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WSU BUDGET: Wait could stretch to May

By Yesenia Amaro, Daily News staff writer

Posted on: Saturday, March 07, 2009

Lisa Fournier said she understands why Washington State University administrators do not want to release information about the budget that could cause faculty to panic.

She also understands the faculty's frustration over wanting to know what kind of decisions are being made.

"I can kind of see both kind of views," said Fournier, an associate professor of psychology at WSU. "We are kind of left in the cloud, but I do understand."

Faculty Senate chairman Bill Cofer said this week that WSU Provost and Executive Vice President Warwick Bayly expects to release details on how the university will deal with budget cuts in April or early May.

Bayly's intentions are to release all the budget cut decisions as a package. At that point, any appeals will have to go through department chairs and deans.

The reason for keeping budget decisions in the dark is to prevent panic among faculty members.

Fournier said she understands why the administration doesn't want to release further information, but a little information would be better than nothing. She said many faculty are stressed, and not knowing what is going on can be even more stressful.

"Transparency as it appears to me is that you would see the process as it's moving along," she said. "I think we would like to know whether the decisions that are being made are rational."

She said faculty would be able to see the logic behind decisions if there was more transparency.

Fournier said faculty would like to know more about areas that have the most funding allocations, the logical places where cuts can be made and what kind of funds are the most targeted.

"I think part of the problem is that that information is not being released," she said.

Associate professor of music David Turnbull said he wants faculty to be able to provide input as the process moves along.

"I would certainly like to see faculty be a part of the decision process," he said.

Not knowing what kind of decisions are being made could be uncomfortable. Still, he said the administration is in a difficult situation because they don't know what the outcome will be.

"I think the administration is between a rock and a hard place," he said. "They don't know what the real budget will be."

He said there is already panic among faculty.

The 20-percent budget cut scenarios are causing serious problems in his program, he said.

"We have a relatively large group of people in our program (who) believe they could lose their job, therefore they are applying for jobs at other institutions," he said.

He said if those individuals get a job somewhere else, even if it's a step down for them, they will likely it "because they know they will have a job for sure."

He said two faculty members within the program already received job offers at other institutions and will only work at WSU through the end of the semester.

"We are losing people in our program," he said.

Elizabeth Siler, a clinical assistant professor in the English department, said there is nobody on the University Budget Committee that represents the non-tenure faculty, such as clinical faculty and instructors.

"There has definitely been a lack for them to get representation in the process," she said.

Siler said she approached President Elson S. Floyd a few months back regarding the opportunity to have someone in the committee representing that group of employees. She said Floyd did not want to add another person to the committee.

"The non-tenure track faculty are the faculty that are most at jeopardy," she said. "It would only seem fair that we would have some representation in the group that is making the decisions that will impact us."

Yesenia Amaro can be reached at (208) 882-5561, ext. 237, or by e-mail at yamaro@dnews.com.