Dear Carolina Community,
Given recent research funding reductions and budget cuts that have been proposed at both the state and federal levels across all higher education institutions, we are taking steps to identify operational savings across the University.
Our leadership team is taking a thoughtful and targeted approach, looking into areas that can be streamlined for greater efficiency, strengthening our operations while meeting our fiduciary responsibility to the people of North Carolina. We have identified savings of approximately $70 million (about 2% of our total operational budget), and including up to $29.5 million in savings this fiscal year. Each of these decisions comes with true costs, yet we believe that this measured approach will enable us to continue to pursue our goal of becoming the best public university in the country.
We have grouped areas of impact, focusing on organizational effectiveness, academic prioritization and putting North Carolina’s residents first.
Organizational Effectiveness
- Savings identified: $38 million
- Leaders from units such as Athletics, Student Success, The Graduate School and the NC Collaboratory are hard at work identifying ways to find savings. We are grateful to them for their partnership.
- Spending will be significantly reduced in procurement and catering.
- Diving deeper into our ServiceFirst effort, we are looking to consolidate roles and resources across human resources, IT, finance, communications and research administration. This will result in administrative staff reductions.
- Additionally, we will eliminate vacant roles and associated costs, institute a faculty retirement incentive program and seek operational energy savings through system replacements and upgrades.
Academic Prioritization
- Savings identified: $14 million
- In partnership with Centers and Institutes, we will implement a process to find savings by identifying operational efficiencies, similar to the work we are doing with unit leaders.
- We are evaluating academic programs with low enrollment and waning interest. This evaluation occurs on an annual basis but must be more rigorous in times like this.
- We will phase out the Elevate program by the end of FY31.
North Carolinians First
- Savings identified: $17 million
- We will continue to prioritize enrollment for North Carolina residents by reducing our financial aid for out-of-state students from 44% to 18% of overall support aligned with the same limits on non-resident enrollment, as mandated by the Board of Governors. Incoming first-year and current undergraduate students will not be affected. Crucial support like the Carolina Covenant and many of our other scholarship programs will not be affected.
We recognize that it is not easy to receive this kind of news. These are difficult choices and there are many different opinions on what is mission-critical and what is not. Behind every budget decision are real people who feel the impact in deeply personal ways, which is why we are working hard to find savings in as many areas as possible before a reduction in staffing. We appreciate your patience and feedback as we work across this complex organization to identify greater detail.
We are presenting the proposed budget savings to the Board of Trustees during the Budget, Finance and Infrastructure Committee session today, which will be available on
the Board website. We are committed to transparency and regular communication throughout this process, and collaboration with leaders across campus, especially in areas of academic shared governance.
In addition, we will begin a Chancellor’s Forum series designed to keep you updated throughout this process. We will provide details on the first forum session soon. In the meantime, you can submit questions to the following email address:
budgetquestions@unc.edu. Your submissions will guide our Forum agenda and the information we intend to provide in a timely manner.
Sincerely,
Lee H. Roberts
Chancellor
James W. Dean, Jr.
Interim Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
Nate Knuffman
Vice Chancellor for Finance and Operations
In an email to campus, Chancellor Lee H. Roberts and other leaders shared steps taken by the University to identify operational savings of approximately $70 million.
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