10/14/2024 | Press release | Distributed by Public on 10/14/2024 11:22
WWU News
October 14, 2024
Bellingham, WA - While WWU has seen good recovery in enrollment since the pandemic, the university continues to work to address a long-term structural budget deficit and on restructuring its administration to serve the needs of Washington state's students into the future.
University leadership today is announcing permanent structural changes that reduce recurring expenses and create more organizational efficiencies to accommodate current and future student demand.
"Our strategy is to create a simpler administrative structure that streamlines relationships, aligns shared priorities, and reduces costly redundancies," said WWU President Sabah Randhawa, "This work will not be easy, nor will it be completed overnight. We are doing everything we can to minimize the impact of our reorganization and cost-cutting measures on personnel and plan to have finished most of the changes and reductions in the organization by the end of Spring 2025. At the same time, we remain committed to sustaining our academic strengths and advancing our mission and strategic priorities."
The following changes to the WWU administrative structure will be made through Fall Quarter 2024 and Winter Quarter 2025:
"Central to our efforts is preserving our academic strengths, the programs, and approaches that give WWU a competitive advantage in the region, and ensuring we can continue to make long-term investments in our high-quality academic programs and in our services to students," said Provost Brad Johnson, "The goal is to build an organization that puts the right roles at the same table, in the same conversations, aligning our efforts to meet the needs of current and future students and the wider WWU community."
WWU's budget challenges are due to lingering pandemic revenue shortfalls, as smaller class sizes work through the system, in addition to insufficient state funding, cost-of-living increases, and higher costs of goods and services.
Permanent cost-cutting efforts will be needed to complement the efficiencies gained from the reorganization. The projections in expenditures will require the reduction of WWU's annual operating budget by approximately eight percent ($18 million of WWU's $235 million annual operating budget), phased in now through the 2026-2027 academic year.
The first step is to identify and reduce non-personnel costs through contract management, reduced reliance on external services, and other recurring expenditure reductions.
Secondly, as part of a broader strategic approach, the university will prioritize the elimination of certain vacant positions. These positions are being assessed based on the university's strategic goals. If there are opportunities to provide services more efficiently without them, those vacant positions will be removed. Twenty vacant positions and five currently filled positions will be reduced this month. Their budget lines will be eliminated as part of permanent cost savings. Consultation between UFWW, WFSE, PSE, Police Guild, and WWU Human Resources labor relations representatives on the folding of these positions is now in progress.
Thirdly, approximately 30 additional positions will need to be reduced as part of the 2025-26 academic year budget plan. Moving forward, every effort to minimize the need for further personnel reductions will be made to identify positions as they become vacant.
In Academic Affairs, the Provost is working in collaboration with academic deans and faculty to minimize parallel structures-referring to degree concentrations and program pathways, typically accompanied with low enrollment courses-in academic colleges and departments. The goal is not to eliminate entire academic units but rather to focus and ensure the strategic positioning of WWU's academic programs without adversely impacting the student experience nor compromising degree offerings.
At the same time, the university continues working with the state of Washington to bolster base budget support and funding for annual cost-of-living increases for Western faculty and staff.
Several cost-saving measures have been enacted in the recent past, including:
President Randhawa said, "As I have said before, short-term strategies, if extended for too long, impact the university's capabilities in unstructured and unintentional ways. By aligning revenues and expenditures on a permanent basis, we can sunset several of the short-term measures, enabling us to focus more strategically on the future we want to build at Western. I am confident that we will come out of this process even more focused and committed to advancing the mission and impact of our university."