Illinois colleges and universities still haven’t received state funding due to the budget impasse. Northern Illinois University trustees passed a resolution earlier this month to address that.
NIU trustees passed a temporary budget in September. It anticipated Governor Bruce Rauner’s originally proposed cuts … which was about 29 percent less than the previous year's funding.
Al Phillips is the vice president of finance at NIU. He says the resolution outlines what almost six months without state funding means for all state higher education and surrounding economic development.
“It basically puts of the lack of a budget into context. […] It just put the situation in terms that would make it easier for the legislators and the governor and the Speaker and those who work for them to understand that this need not be taken lightly,” Phillips said.
Phillips says the resolution will be sent to the governor after the new year.
Phillips says layoffs and furloughs are still a possibility … but not an immediate one just yet. However, he says the school will have to consider possibilities next month if there’s still no state spending plan, since that’s when planning for fiscal year 2017 begins for NIU.
Phillips says the interim NIU budget will be in place until a state budget is made … no matter when that comes during the current fiscal year. NIU trustees will go back and vote on a new budget when a state one is approved.
