In the wake of significant budget cuts the University of West Georgia has been forced to enact this fiscal year, staff and faculty gathered Tuesday for a subdued budget address from university President Beheruz Sethna.

“We believe that if the state budgets are lower, we need to take our share of the pain,” he said.

And every state agency has taken its share of cuts. But Sethna believes agencies should be considered separately by the services they provide. For instance, cutting staff at the Department of Driver Services may mean that customers will have to wait in longer lines, but it’s not going to change anyone’s life, he said. Cutting any state university’s budget should be considered carefully, he said.

“When you do the same kind of thing to a higher education institution, if you can’t meet the needs of 5 (percent), 10 percent of students, that’s more serious than waiting in line,” Sethna said. “Those people who may not get a degree, their whole life changes.”

It not only changes their lives, it impacts the lives of those students’ families, which in turn impacts the state.

The failing economy has meant all state agencies have suffered budget cuts this fiscal year, and, in reality, cuts have been a fact of life throughout the nation.

The university was informed in July that it would have to cut 5 percent of its budget but as the state has fallen deeper into recession the budget cuts became deeper to 6 percent, then 8 percent. Now, if the governor’s proposed budget is approved by the Legislature the university will have to cut 9 percent “ a total of $4.8 million, Sethna said.

The university had prepared for bad news when it built its original budget, appropriating money to some purposes but postponing the spending until the end of the year, Sethna said. Those expenditures were canceled after the budget cuts, he said. The university also cut operating expenses throughout the campus. In addition, the university system has spread the cuts around, decreasing the employer contribution for insurance, effectively increasing the cost for employees and initiating a one-time fee for students.

“I believe this ultimately that when you see the whole picture, it provides a picture of shared pain,” Sethna said. “No group, none of us, not the institution, not the university system, not the students, no one’s getting a free pass.”

The university has also chosen to reduce its staff, not by laying off, but by leaving positions that have come open vacant. For an entity that spends more than 80 percent of its budget on personnel, that is a huge accomplishment, Sethna said.

However, he thinks it has been perceived as a sign that the universities can cut more.

“For some reason, good planning is not an asset,” Sethna said. “From what I am reading, the Legislature feels that unless there are actual layoffs, furloughs, blood on the street, that the message is that ‘You guys are just whining. You’re just whining and further that you must have been terribly fat and lazy to start with, such that you can take a 9 percent cut without any layoffs.’”

Sethna assured the gathered employees that he and the university system value human resources and will continue to make cuts programs rather than personnel cuts as long as possible.

Next year’s cuts will be even deeper. The governor’s proposed fiscal year 2010 budget would mean 9.5 percent cuts at the university next year, the equivalent of $5.1 million, and that may be just the beginning, Sethna said.

The university hopes to make some of that up in increased enrollments, something it has been able to do this year. It also plans to initiate efficiency measures that will save approximately $500,000. The university system has created some flexibility in the budgets of its member universities by temporarily lowering the percentage that the universities set aside for maintenance and allowing them to use that money for operating expenses for the rest of fiscal year 2009 and fiscal year 2010, he said.

These steps should allow the university to meet the 9.5 percent cuts, Sethna said.

But he doesn’t believe the cuts will stand at 9.5 percent.

“We need to steel ourselves to do more of the same,” Sethna said. “We will perhaps need to be more innovative.”