Interim President Smith Announces Next Steps for Budget Cuts, Reallocation

Editor's note: The following message was sent out to all USU employees on Monday, March 31, 2025.

Dear Colleagues,

As we enter the final month of the academic year, I write to offer you an update on the progress and next steps with our budget process. I hope you will forgive the length of this communication. I want to avail you of as much information as I can at this time.

Let me start by stating that I understand and share the concerns many of you have about the current higher education context and our circumstances at USU. I wish there was an easy solution to our challenges, which include the disruption to research funding and persistent cynicism about pursuing higher education despite strong evidence of its personal and societal value. Regardless of how we find ourselves in this situation, we must tackle the challenges and tasks required of us today while working to change the prevailing narrative about the place of education in our society. We will proceed accordingly.

The task immediately before us is tied to our budget. As I shared in a previous communication, we are charged with addressing a roughly $4.8M budget cut from last year’s state legislation and a roughly $12.5M+ impact from this year’s legislation, HB 265: Higher Education Strategic Reinvestment. From this year’s $12.5M+ impact (only), we may propose reinvestment in strong performing and new activities that align with the needs of our students and the state. If our proposal is accepted, we will then recover these dollars, but they must be spent in the proposed new ways. These ways will naturally align with our mission and various strategic priorities yet will only be achievable by pivoting away from some of our previous structures, programs, and people. This will be incredibly hard for us even if in the interest of the long-term health and success of USU.

We have now received guidance from the Utah System of Higher Education (USHE) in pursuing our institutional strategic reinvestment planning. Of note, the timeline is accelerated, and we need to provide our plan to USHE in early May. In light of this, you will receive information and updates throughout April as initial decisions are made. These updates will come through email, as well as updates to our reinvestment planning website. Provost Smith and I overviewed our process of evaluating our instructional strengths and performance at the recent university forum. Please be assured that our process continues to be iterative, context-seeking, and evolving as we receive feedback from you, the college deans, and others. USHE also expects that our plans will be living documents that may evolve over the coming three-year implementation of HB 265. Nonetheless, our process must now lead to concrete decisions.

In the coming weeks, we will begin by sharing information on administrative, operational, and structural changes that will be implemented. This will be followed by information on programs to be discontinued or modified. By working in this sequence, we endeavor to find efficiencies and opportunities to recover dollars in a way that is least impactful to our people, while complying with the letter and spirit of HB 265. Having said this, there will be no way to avoid job cuts—personnel are the primary cost of an institution like ours.

As a reminder, faculty and staff may apply for a Voluntary Separation Incentive Plan (VSIP) until 5 p.m. on May 2, 2025, when the application window closes. VSIP applications will be reviewed by deans and vice presidents and approved if they align with USU’s strategic interests and if business continuity can be maintained through adjustments and efficiencies within the unit. There is no guarantee of approval, but we will strive to approve as many as possible to help address last year’s legislative cut and, where aligned with our strategic reinvestment planning, this year’s budget task. Additional personnel cuts required by our strategic reinvestment planning will be achieved through a Reduction in Force (RIF).

It is important to know that, under HB 265, institutions may adopt policies specific to achieving the goals of the legislation that supersede other existing USHE or institutional policies and guidance. This is necessary to meet the timeline and expectations of the legislation. Such policy is in development and will be constructed to enable structural, programmatic, and personnel decisions, including a RIF, outside of our typical institutional guidance and constraints. Accordingly, existing policies tied to curricular changes, tenured roles, and other areas will not be applied when implementing our HB 265 plan. This is outside our customary norms but is necessary for us to secure our critical reinvestment dollars. I share this here so that you are fully informed as you consider possible changes to your work, the VSIP opportunity, and other implications of the changes before us.

Also, I am aware that there is keen interest in how we will proceed with our general education and research activities considering state legislation and federal executive orders. These domains of work are part of the context surrounding our decision making, of course, but necessarily will be addressed in more detail at a later time. I have directed the team in central administration and our deans to focus primarily on our reallocation planning in light of the accelerated time frame to submit our plan to USHE. Attending to everything before proceeding would be ideal, but this is a luxury we do not have. Naturally, in our reinvestment planning we will work to leave ourselves as many degrees of freedom as possible for when we later turn to other challenges.

Thank you for reading this message, for your feedback to date, and your interest in the well-being of our academic community and institution. Also, thank you for your daily contributions to our excellence and success. I know how effortful that can be in our current circumstances. I will be in touch again soon.

Sincerely yours,

Alan L. Smith