{"id":2896,"date":"2016-02-11T19:11:28","date_gmt":"2016-02-12T03:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wou.edu\/westernjournal\/?p=2896"},"modified":"2016-02-11T19:11:28","modified_gmt":"2016-02-12T03:11:28","slug":"end-to-negotiation-draws-near","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/end-to-negotiation-draws-near\/","title":{"rendered":"End to negotiation draws near"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Alvin Wilson \r\nStaff Writer<\/pre>\n
Negotiations have been winding down as President Rex Fuller and his negotiating team look for ways to settle with WOUFT.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cUniversity funding really only consists of two components these days,\u201d said Fuller. \u201cOne 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven 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,\u201d said Fuller.<\/p>\n
The 2016 Operating Budget for Western includes everything in the university\u2019s most current proposal, and it shows Western\u2019s operating revenue falling below 15 percent by next year.<\/p>\n
Fuller and his negotiating team both see this as a risk, but Fuller believes it will be worth it, saying \u201cI believe that gives us time to rebuild the enrollment pipeline. The bet I\u2019m making as a president, if you will, is that we\u2019ll actually exceed these enrollment figures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fuller said that there\u2019s a problem with most of the school\u2019s funds coming from tuition, since the Western Promise has locked in the tuition rates for about half of the students.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cTherein lies the financial risk, which is part of the reason why we have the 15 percent reserve,\u201d said Fuller.<\/p>\n
Fuller admits that a compromise must be made to settle with WOUFT, but he doesn\u2019t agree with some of the claims the union has made about his side of the negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think one of the things that has been said is that the university is stalling,\u201d said Fuller. \u201cI would say that\u2019s contrary to all the evidence I\u2019ve seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fuller says that he and his negotiating team have been active in trying to resolve the negotiations from the beginning.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have changed proposals to be responsive to the concerns of the union,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were prepared to go to mediation in January; the union was not.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fuller says the university is close to settling with WOUFT and that he is ready to consider any proposal they might offer.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne 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\u2019t considered yet,\u201d said Fuller. \u201cWe work on this every week\u2014anytime that there\u2019s an opportunity to adjust.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Negotiations have been winding down as President Rex Fuller and his negotiating team look for ways to settle with WOUFT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":825,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/825"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wou.edu\/westernhowl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}