Anthony Rodd
arodd@uwyo.edu
Amidst the recent state financial crisis, the joint budget appropriations committee has been meeting the past two months to decide on the new established budget for the biennium, which will have rippling effects through the university.
The meetings are comprised with agencies across the state and the University of Wyoming.
Bill Mai, UW’s vice president of administration, was in attendance for some of the meetings along with other UW administrators. He said UW will be experiencing a fiscal impact.
“It’ll have an impact for sure,” Mai said. “What they have discussed in the budget hearings is a 1.5 percent reduction to state agency general funds. Approximately what that means for us is about $6 million less over the biennial to our block grant.”
This is in addition to the UW hiring freezes, which were set in place across the state four months ago by Governor Matt Mead.
In addition to the block grant reduction and the hiring freezes, Mai said the budget committee has been working closely with UW to possibly cut programs.
“There will be an evaluation of programs across the campus over the next year,” Mai said. “No programs have been cut as of yet, but that does not mean they are not coming.”
The joint appropriations committee transcripts and audio recordings on the legislative website alluded to programs being denied directly by the governor, however, specifics of what programs could be cut were left out of audio transcripts. The M.S. program in counseling from UW Casper and the B.S. program in nursing from community colleges around the state have been denied. The UW outreach school will be denied $500,000 in upgrades.
The most ominous points of conversations in the committee meeting were the WWAMI/WICHE programs, which benefit UW students and carbon engineering research conducted by the engineering department.
Dr. Mike Northam, who heads the UW carbon research initiative, described graphene and carbon fiber as “miracle molecules,” both of which are being researched under this initiative.
“Graphene’s a pure carbon compound that could be used for a huge variety of things and the markets for it are just now developing,” Northam said. “We think it could become a new manufacturing sector in the state, and if the state’s revenue system is modified it could potentially replace the revenues lost from coal shipped to make electricity.”
It will be up to the joint appropriations committee to decide if funding will be continued.
“Some budget cuts could come as early as July, and there may be additional reductions to fall,” Mai said.
