It has been a tumultuous year for the University of Maine System.
It has announced leadership changes at four of seven member institutions. Enrollment across the system has slipped another 2.5 percent since last year. And administrators have encountered fierce pushback as they have cut faculty positions and eliminated academic programs at the University of Southern Maine.
A report delivered to the university system’s trustees last week puts it all in perspective. The conclusion? Under current conditions, the University of Maine System is on track to run a $90 million deficit by the 2019-20 academic year.
That’s the projection if, essentially, nothing changes about the way Maine’s universities operate — if the system’s health care costs continue to increase by 7 percent annually, if tuition remains frozen, if the state kicks in the same amount of money, if employees continue to receive salary increases they’re entitled to under current contracts, if all 580 university-owned buildings remain in operation.
Under slightly different assumptions — that health care costs don’t rise as sharply, that tuition ticks up, that the state kicks in slightly more funding — the University of Maine System is still in rough shape. The deficit by 2019-20, under those conditions, would be $59 million, according to the university system’s latest multi-year financial analysis.
This year, the university system has dug into its reserves in an attempt to produce a balanced budget, and the budget still isn’t balanced, according to Rebecca Wyke, the university system’s vice chancellor for administration and finance.
“We are deficit-spending,” she said.
Since 2008, the university system has produced similar multi-year financial documents that project the system’s financial condition over the next five years. For the most part, the five-year outlook has continued to become more dire.
“The physical footprint and the number of people [employed] are more than what we can afford,” Wyke said. “The question is, how can we bring those in line to a point where we can afford it?”
This isn’t the first time the alarm for a needed shakeup has been sounded. Throughout the University of Maine System’s 46-year history, there has been recommendation after recommendation made to reshape the seven-university network. None has been heeded.
Today, to close the budget gap projected for 2020 without major structural changes, tuition would have to rise 5.5 percent each year, state funding would have to increase 7.4 percent a year, enrollment would have to grow 4.2 percent annually or the university system’s workforce would have to be slashed by 14.5 percent.
None of those scenarios is likely, and simply depending on more state funding or higher tuition — much less holding out hope for a drastic enrollment turnaround — wouldn’t set up Maine’s universities for a sustainable future.
Some of that more difficult work is underway at the University of Southern Maine. It’s painful, and no one can be assured of the outcome.
And the next big potential change? At the start of next year, university system trustees will discuss shrinking the physical footprint of Maine’s universities. As enrollment dips, more instruction moves online and educational needs change in response to technology, not all of the campus’ 580 buildings will be needed.
The university already has set in motion the work of shutting down its central office in Bangor and moving the 100 employees who work there to campuses — most likely in Bangor and Orono. Choosing to shed facilities throughout the state can save the university system money through less day-to-day maintenance and avoided costs from renovations that won’t have to be done.
It’s always easy to reject a major change, but the campuses’ physical footprint offers a good place to start.
Changes there should be just some of many to come. A $90 million deficit is a crisis that needs to be addressed immediately. The university system’s leaders must make bold choices that allow UMS to become a more sustainable public university system. The rest of the state must allow it to happen.