UConn administrators hold town hall, address concerns over budget cuts 

On Wednesday, Jan. 24, at 12 p.m., University of Connecticut administrators held a virtual town hall responding to questions about planned budget cuts from anonymous students and faculty. Set against the backdrop of enduring disagreements between UConn and the Connecticut state legislature over budgeting, these cuts most notably involve a 15% across-the-board cut to the budgets of UConn’s academic schools and colleges. 

UConn administrators, represented most prominently in the town hall by President Radenka Maric and Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Jeffrey Geoghegan, cite the lack of funds from Governor Ned Lamont and the state legislature, a historic salary increase of 13.5% and inflationary pressures as complications which are driving the university into a deficit. 

A recent reduction in funds from the state government, a decline of $47.3 million from fiscal year 2024 to fiscal year 2025, has particularly hit the university’s budget hard and have been further exacerbated by the expiration of covid relief funds from the American Rescue Plan Act. Discussions between representatives of UConn and the state legislatures are expected to continue when the legislature reconvenes on Feb. 7. 

UConn’s primary aims are the reinstatement of the $47.3 million in state support, though Geoghegan concedes that “even if we are successful in getting additional state support, we still have work to do.” 

“There’s no guarantee next session that our requests will be covered given the state’s fiscal guard rails,” said Senior Director for Governmental Relations Joann Lombardo. “There are hundreds of millions of dollars of funding requests before the legislature… it’s uncertain what will happen next session, but we will continue to advocate for the resources that we need.” 

With a projected deficit for financial year 2025 of approximately $70 million, UConn is still in financial trouble regardless of whether or not the $47.3 million in state support is restored. 

It is under these precarious circumstances that “all-two ledger budgets, academic and non-academic, will be cut 15% over five years,” in the words of Maric. 

The proposed changes have been met with fierce opposition from the UConn branch of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), who held a demonstration outside the Rowe Building on Tuesday. The AAUP’s concerns regarding the budget include the potential for layoffs, departure, or early retirement of faculty members, the closing of graduate programs and the loss of UConn’s R1 research institution classification. 

A flyer that has recently appeared across campus, jointly endorsed by the AAUP, the UConn Graduate Employee & Postdoc Union and other labor groups, excoriates what they believe to be a bloated administration forcing academic departments to pay for the spending they themselves directed. 

“The planned cuts of 15% to 19% will devastate UConn, resulting in mass layoffs and program closures,” the “Stop the Cuts” flyer says. “Class sizes will explode, and many will need to move online… graduation rates will plummet, increasing the financial burden on students.” 

The flyer additionally accuses the administration of a multimillion-dollar partnership with Huron Consulting, an organization it alleges has created “disastrous impacts” for the “reputations and future prospects” of the schools its notorious cost-cutting strategies have come into contact with. 

“Faculty are being asked to do more with less,” one anonymous inquirer commented at the town hall. “Having endured many cuts in the last ten years, most departments don’t have any fat to cut… this will lead to increased faculty burnout and decreasing job satisfaction, which will ultimately result in faculty retiring or leaving UConn for other academic institutions or industry.” 

“We are very mindful of this,” noted UConn provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Anne D’Alleva regarding faculty concerns. “We need to collaborate, we need to be efficient, we need to leverage technology when we can.” 

D’Alleva additionally responded to concerns from professors regarding potential increases in class sizes and the indiscriminate nature of the 15% reduction in operating support budgets, which affects all academic units equally. 

It is not only academic departments that are being pressured to increase revenues. Maric attests that UConn has reduced administration costs by nearly one million, following the consolidation of high level positions at UConn and UConn Health. UConn Athletics has also been subject to budgetary changes of its own. 

“This year was our most successful year ever, with $55.1 million,” said UConn Director of Athletics David Benedict at the virtual town hall. “Next year, there’s already a scheduled increase to take place [in ticket prices]… these are the types of strategies and planning we’re doing well in advance to increase revenues.” 

According to Maric, however, UConn students should not expect any extraordinary increases in tuition outside of the university’s traditional 5-year tuition plans. 

“It is unreasonable to assume that a tuition increase can fill a budget gap that we have of this size,” she noted. 

Maric also is confident the administration will avoid the layoffs that have become commonplace within similar institutions’ cost-cutting programs. 

“At no communications did we talk about layoffs,” Maric said. “The last means is to do layoffs, because we know how much that hurts university. We are looking for all other means to address the gap, and we don’t know how large the gap is going to be until the end of the [legislative] session.”