Office of the Chancellor > State of the Campus Address 2002 > Budget

State of the Campus Address
September 25, 2002

Budget
These are no easy tasks. I want to be very clear – we have major hurdles to overcome on a number of fronts. On the fiscal side, the State of Colorado faces competing, and legitimate, demands on scarce resources. At the moment, we are hearing that higher education faces serious difficulties in the state’s budgetary outlook for the coming year. Capital construction projects are facing delays as a result of state cutbacks.

Based on the latest forecasts, the Boulder campus almost certainly will experience budget cuts. At the moment, we don’t know the extent of those cuts, but we will maintain a dialogue on our evolving budget condition with the Boulder Faculty Assembly, the deans, staff and students through the Campus Executive Committee and other forums.

We are all concerned about the implications for our campus, but we must remain united as we work to identify the areas for reduction or elimination. The challenge is to manage a process that identifies areas for elimination, while at the same maintaining momentum and enthusiasm for qualitative improvement, and even support for continued investment in critical areas.

Our robust enrollments will help to reduce the anticipated cut substantially; however, this is, of course, a lost opportunity to invest those rare new dollars in our plans for excellence.

There is strong support, at this time, for reductions that are narrow and deep, rather than across the board. I have been encouraged by this support, but it will not make the decisions any easier.

We intend to involve the campus community in our discussions for responding to the state’s budgetary shortfalls. I invite your feedback on proposals for setting priorities for whatever funding flexibility we may have. And we will seek your participation in the direction of our campus as we pursue "Quality for Colorado" initiatives.

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