UW president warns of budget crisis, potential layoffs
During a virtual town hall meeting Wednesday, University of Washington President Ana Mari Cauce said funding cuts from both the state and federal government are putting the UW in a budget crisis comparable to the Great Recession of 2008.
Lawmakers in Olympia have been trying to address a nearly $16 billion budget shortfall over four years. It’s up to Gov. Bob Ferguson to approve the budget or veto portions of it.
Money for higher education is considered discretionary. Cauce said she's expecting a 6.5% budget cut.
The school also has yet to fully recover from cuts in 2008, she said.
“I want to be very clear, this will be painful,” Cauce said. “I think that there is probably no question that layoffs need to be part of the strategy. The budget hole is too big for that not to be the case.”
In 2008 staff were laid off, some programs were eliminated, others became self-supporting, and advisors took on bigger work loads.
“Faculty, staff and students will all feel the pain of it,” Cauce said. “In 2008 a lot of staff were laid off, we had program eliminations. There was pain and there will be pain.”
Cauce said the layoffs will likely hit staff members the most because faculty members are tenured. The university did not say how many or when workers will receive termination notices. Cauce said the university will not make sudden layoffs — similar to the way federal workers were cut without any notice under the Trump administration.
“But the truth is the more we delay now, the more we may have to lay off in the future,” Cauce said.
UW officials said they do not plan to offer voluntary retirement incentives or buyout incentives to reduce payroll costs over layoffs. The university tried this method during the 2008 recession, but it did not save “a lot” of money, according to officials.
Cauce said UW officials are also expecting more cuts to federal agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. These groups help pay for research and other programs at the UW.
In January, President Donald Trump stopped grant money, including funding that was already approved by the NIH. At least 73 grant renewals for the UW were delayed, costing the university more than $61 million.
Washington state sued the Trump administration twice over the issue. A judge placed a restraining order from stopping any more payments. The White House was also ordered to unfreeze the money.
The latest UW cuts are expected to impact students directly. It will likely take longer for them to meet with advisors, classes will get bigger, and there may be less TA positions available.
Cauce noted that, despite similar impacts in 2008, graduation rates did not go down after cuts.
