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UI President says “Rome is burning,” offers contract with the state

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Illinois

The [University of Illinois] has lost more than $750 million in state funding over the last two years, UI President Tim Killeen noted during his annual meeting with the faculty Monday.

“That’s three-quarters of a billion dollars. That’s a lot,” Killeen told a couple of faculty members lamenting cuts in their units. “We are under huge stress, and Rome is burning around us. These are not normal times.”

At the UI Board of Trustees’ meeting on Nov. 10, officials will roll out the proposed new contract with the state, which has been rechristened the Investment Performance and Accountability Initiative, Killeen said. Members of the UI’s bipartisan legislative caucus will be on hand.

In exchange for meeting specific benchmarks — such as limiting tuition to the rate of inflation, providing adequate financial aid or achieving certain graduation rates — the UI would receive guaranteed funding for five years, regulatory relief and procurement reform, which faculty have pushed to speed up the process of purchasing research equipment and other materials.

“Imagine what we could do if we had that kind of predictable environment,” Killeen said.

Sounds like an interesting concept. Slimming its bureaucratic bloat ought to be a part of it, however.

Any other ideas?

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:46 am

Comments

I hope they expand that to include all state schools, otherwise it will be far too easy to just ignore the smaller schools as they wither and die.

But maybe that’s the real plan.

Comment by MSIX Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:50 am
I’m going to be a cynic here. The State isn’t honoring and/or paying in a timely manner various current contracts. What makes the UoI think the State would honor this proposed contract?

Comment by RNUG Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:52 am
===That’s three-quarters of a billion dollars. That’s a lot,” (UI President Tim) Killeen told a couple of faculty members lamenting cuts in their units. “We are under huge stress, and Rome is burning around us. These are not normal times.”===

Only one governor has not funded higher education since 1858. Voting for Raunerites will continue the burning of Rome.

To the Post,

Great start to lowering cost, and UIUC has made a conscious effort to lower, yep, lower, their benchmark admittance criteria to get more students, and more students, by volume, means more monies, and then lower the academic buerocracies and lower many of the assisting internal college(s) hierarchy(ies)

Rauner might ask Killeen to have “Office Space” moments in each college.

So, if all the UIUC alums are “cool” with a three-quarter a billion shortfall, a lowering of academic standards, the reduction of administration staffing, maybe even cornerstone educators leaving for Michigan, for example…

The first worry needs to be…

“Why is the governor trying to close state universities”

Once Rauner puts monies in universities, then let’s talk about who is committed to what.

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:57 am
With whom are they negotiating?

Good ideas if they were in a functioning State.

Comment by Last Bull Moose Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:57 am
Supposedly UI has legislative support and a bill will be introduced. My question is, how does the state enter into an agreement on future appropriations?

Comment by Because I Said So.... Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:58 am
Consideration- Does this fall right into the divide and conquer leveraging plan of Rauner and Co.? I’d much rather see the universities and colleges stand together instead of trying to win their cases individually.

Comment by Anon221 Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:05 am
URBANA (AP) — The University of Illinois says it has cut the number of its employees by 484 over the past 18 months, about 3 percent of the school’s non-instructional workforce.

The university said in a news release Wednesday that most of the cuts were made through attrition as people left jobs and that 202 of the positions were in the university system’s central administration.

Comment by Handle Bar Mustache Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:08 am
A raise in the archaic $250K project cap would be a huge help. Bump it up to say $750K, $1M maybe?

Comment by Gruntled University Employee Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:09 am
What’s the Rauner record on honoring contracts?

On to Plan B…..

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:09 am
More on bloat:

Thu, 10/06/2016

URBANA — The employee count at the University of Illinois has dropped by more than 500 in the last 18 months, a response to the state’s fiscal problems, officials said Wednesday.

President Tim Killeen released what he called an “interim report” on budget-cutting efforts, showing that 484 non-instructional staff positions have been cut since February 2015, a 3 percent drop.

…202 positions, or 41 percent, were in university administration at the system level. That represents a 17 percent cut, from 1,211 university administration employees in February 2015 to 1,009 last month…

Comment by Handle Bar Mustache Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:10 am
I’ve said it before here - on Rauner’s watc, public universities have been gutted by more than a billion dollars in two short years.

Excluding MAP grants for the poor.

Comment by Handle Bar Mustache Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:13 am
>“Imagine what we could do if we had that kind of predictable environment,” Killeen said.

Imagine what the entire state could do with a predictable, balanced budget.

>In exchange for meeting specific benchmarks

Illinois, the state of no funding without lots of preconditions, even if that funding was actually included in a budget.

Comment by Earnest Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:14 am
Higher ed suffers ( and well it should), because Illinois politicians felt it more important to try and buy votes with unrealistic contract guarantees. The ISC has also said it more important to honor these contracts than worry about higher ed. Its the old ’cause and effect’ thing. Even the people in Carbondale dont care about SIUC (i.e. the Southerns endorsement of TBryant). Old Blue no longer cares about higher ed.

Comment by Blue dog dem Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:14 am
Blue Dog, I hardly think the Southern’s endorsement is indicative of what Carbondale or the region thinks. The paper’s editorial page is a mess.

Comment by dr. reason a, goodwin Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:24 am
So, how did the U of I managed to survive.

Where did they hide the money that allowed that?

Comment by Anonymous Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:27 am
How about getting rid of all the bureaucratic mandates from the legislature?

Comment by Liberty Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:55 am
==Slimming its bureaucratic bloat ought to be a part of it, however.==

Amen. Ought to be Part One in fact. Rome is burning around us? Jeesh.

Comment by A guy Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 11:57 am
As a public institution, the U of I used to be affordable. What happened?

Comment by Keyser Soze Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:05 pm
484 layoffs in the last 18 months, including 202 at the administration level — 17% — doesn’t qualify as “slimming?”

What does?

Shouldn’t there be some kind of plan from the administration, or is it just the wrecking ball, willy-nilly?

I doubt that $750 million cut was good for the regional economy.

Comment by wordslinger Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:09 pm
We’ve been through this before. What are your examples of bloat and suggested cuts? Show your work.

Comment by Seriously? Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:13 pm
Good to Chief Illini playin’ the rest of the team— not
How about the we amend the contract to mandate disposal of the ugly gray uniforms for starters?
And skip the new procurement loopholes unless you want birth the next scandals

Comment by Annonin' Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:22 pm
Do kids from Illinois still attend U of I? It seemed like all foreign students at this point lat time I was there.

Comment by Mike Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:28 pm
@ Seriously. Exactly! The bloat argument is a red herring. If you want a world class university system, you have to pay for it. If you want good computers, you need tech support. If you want external funding managed correctly, you need accountants. If you want students with learning disabilities to get a college education, you need support staff. Funding to Illinois higher education peaked over a decade ago. Please stop with the arguments that public higher education is on some sort of spending spree.

Here is some data:

“More recently, when appropriations for the State Universities Retirement System are excluded, total state funding for higher education institutional operations and grants in fiscal year 2014 is $ 397.2 million (16.6 percent) less than in fiscal year 2009 after accounting for inflation.”

Source: https://www.isac.org/dotAsset/dd089996-717b-4a99-9169-b08a3271f9f5.pdf (which is state agency source)

Comment by Scamp640 Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:35 pm
If the UI were to promise to cap wage increases to their union workforce it might actually be meaningful.

Comment by Anon Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:40 pm
Regulatory relief = slimming bureaucratic bloat? Universities have a lot of administrators who are there to manage compliance with things considered desirable by somebody but not directly related to education.

Comment by Excessively Rabid Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 12:45 pm
dr @ 11:48. You would think that most of the greater Carbondale metro would think of SIUC as the Holy Grail. Although I have only been back for a couple months, I sense that locals not on the g-train, have seen enough.

Comment by blue dog dem Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 1:13 pm
If you want something to hold up in this state, you need to put into the IL constitution and even then be ready to go to court.

Comment by facts are stubborn things Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 1:27 pm
- RNUG - Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:52 am:

I’m going to be a cynic here. The State isn’t honoring and/or paying in a timely manner various current contracts. What makes the UoI think the State would honor this proposed contract?

Damn, you beat me to it again!

Comment by Federalist Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 3:16 pm
1. Rauner does not care if the UI goes belly up - conservatives believe higher ed is a waste of money and just liberal indoc.

2. What a great way to achieve dubious measures- graduation rate up? Fantastic - you’ll see inflated rates and then politicians will run around equating less money with succcess, when there was no success, just blackmail and students passed through.

Comment by Dr X Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 4:27 pm
My daughter is a high school senior. She has already been accepted into the honors college at Indiana University and received a scholarship. Indiana makes this type of up front offer to many of Illinois top high school students. With the scholarship, it’s the same cost as sending my daughter to U of I. She is not even applying to U of I and neither are most of her classmates. Why? As Killeen said in his talk, a much larger than normal number of faculty left U of I last year and they are bracing for more departures this year. Loss of faculty is destabilizing and no parent wants their child to attend a weakened school.

Comment by Former Hoosier Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 4:34 pm
I wish them luck. I’m an alumna. But without a budget, I think they’re hostages still along with the rest of us. They’re negotiating against themselves.

Comment by CCP Hostage Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 4:41 pm
“I doubt that $750 million cut was good for the regional economy.”
And, of course, the reason we pay taxes is to support “the regional economy”.

Comment by striketoo Thursday, Nov 3, 16 @ 10:50 pm
This is just not serious. No real economization to attract GOP and fiscal-oriented members, and no means to enforce the deal. Has a holier-than-thou cast to it as well: “we are so good and important that we should be held harmless from the rest of you rabble”.

Comment by Chad Friday, Nov 4, 16 @ 9:03 am
What really needs to be done is to right-size the state higher ed system and integrate the community college system with the remaining state universities. Leave u of I as-is, and collapse the rest into two larger entities (one north and one south). Probably leave ISU alone. The current system reflects the post-WWII state of play. We have a bunch of state universities that tried to become mini-Urbanas.

Comment by Chad Friday, Nov 4, 16 @ 9:12 am