Last week’s stopgap budget measure provided additional funding to higher education, including Northern Illinois University. The measure provides 48 million dollars for NIU’s institutional operations.
With this funding, NIU now has about 80% of the money that it requested for the previous fiscal year. Although it’s categorized as operational expenses, and doesn’t have the limits of a line-item budget, Finance and Administration Vice President Al Phillips says most of this cash will go toward university payroll. He also says the stopgap bill is only a short term solution.
“It does not provide funding for all of 17, but we certainly have sufficient funding to get through the fall, through the spring, and we don’t anticipate any problems funding the university all through fiscal year ’17,” he says.
Only 40% of NIU’s operating budget comes from the state, so it can recoup the difference through tuition and fees. However, Phillips says part of the cost cutting has involved reducing hiring and deferring construction and maintenance work.
“You can only do that so long before you have to fix buildings, so that further damage doesn’t take place that then increases your cost of repairs,” he says.
While the stopgap measure addresses the current shortfall, Phillips says he believes a long term solution requires more consistent appropriations and a potential examination of the state’s current revenue stream.