By: Alvin Wilson Staff Writer
Negotiations have been winding down as President Rex Fuller and his negotiating team look for ways to settle with WOUFT.
Fuller has been criticized by the union for not yielding in his effort to keep the operating revenue above 15 percent. Because of the volatile nature of university revenue streams, Fuller said they are still trying to stay within the boundaries they previously set.
“University funding really only consists of two components these days,” said Fuller. “One would be the state funding, which is based upon state allocation, and the other is tuition. Tuition accounts for a greater percent today than it did 40 years ago, so it does matter.”
The university compiles information about future state funding, projected enrollment rates, tuition rates, and other expenses, and then bases budgetary decisions off of the projections.
Tuition is expected to increase by three percent every year. Enrollment is expected to be flat next year, but by 2018 it is expected to begin increasing again.
“Even with those three percent forecasts, and even with enrollment growth reversing the trend, we start to have a situation where we begin to erode into our 15 percent reserve,” said Fuller.
The 2016 Operating Budget for Western includes everything in the university’s most current proposal, and it shows Western’s operating revenue falling below 15 percent by next year.
Fuller and his negotiating team both see this as a risk, but Fuller believes it will be worth it, saying “I believe that gives us time to rebuild the enrollment pipeline. The bet I’m making as a president, if you will, is that we’ll actually exceed these enrollment figures.”
Fuller said that there’s a problem with most of the school’s funds coming from tuition, since the Western Promise has locked in the tuition rates for about half of the students.
This means that when the university increases tuition rates, it will be hard to predict how much of an increase in funding it will bring.
“Therein lies the financial risk, which is part of the reason why we have the 15 percent reserve,” said Fuller.
Fuller admits that a compromise must be made to settle with WOUFT, but he doesn’t agree with some of the claims the union has made about his side of the negotiations.
“I think one of the things that has been said is that the university is stalling,” said Fuller. “I would say that’s contrary to all the evidence I’ve seen.”
Fuller says that he and his negotiating team have been active in trying to resolve the negotiations from the beginning.
“We have changed proposals to be responsive to the concerns of the union,” he said. “We were prepared to go to mediation in January; the union was not.”
Fuller says the university is close to settling with WOUFT and that he is ready to consider any proposal they might offer.
“One of their emails said they believe that we could solve it within the amount of money on the table, and I stand ready to consider something we haven’t considered yet,” said Fuller. “We work on this every week—anytime that there’s an opportunity to adjust.”
Mark Perlman, president of WOUFT, says there is no risk of a faculty strike, suggesting that they are working on reaching an agreement as well.
