The Wake

The University of Minnesota is playing favorites instead of sharing its wealth with folks at the bottom, said some Twin Cities students in late October.

The accusation comes as the school absorbs a 15% cut to its overall budget. Now it plans to find almost $319 million in revenues and cuts in the next biennium to balance its ledgers.

“I don’t believe that we can balance this budget unless everybody pulls on the oar,” said University President Robert Bruininks to a group of students.

Student tuitions and fees are expected to go up by more than $139 million in fiscal years 2004 and 2005, almost half of all system’s cuts, according to a report issued to the Board of Regents in October.

Other sacrifices will come from faculty and staff, institutional revenues and program expenses, the report said.

With this year’s salary freezes and benefit cuts, some clerical workers will work 12 months and earn what they earned in 11 months last year, according to the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

Sixty campus administrators earned more than Governor Tim Pawlenty’s $120,000 salary during fiscal year 2003, according to a University document.

These monetary salaries will not be reduced, Bruininks said. Cuts to benefits and parking spaces for top administration officials average the equivalent of a 2% “largely symbolic” pay cut, he said.

A student asked Bruninks to consider laying off some of these top-paid administrative workers.

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Bruininks said.

The University must “reduce reliance on state support,” according to the president’s plan to balance the budget.

Some have said they are concerned this trend puts the University at the mercy of private interests.

But reducing reliance is not the same as giving up efforts to keep state appropriations flowing into the University’s coffers, Bruininks said.

“We fight tenaciously for every damn state dollar,” Bruininks said.

Bruininks stressed the importance of spending money on beautification projects to make the University appear pleasant. As he lamented the cost of maintenance rituals like keeping fresh coats of paint on buildings, a student told him the antique look was fashionable.

“It’s ‘in,’ is it?” Bruininks said with a smile.