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Two vice president positions at Western Kentucky University are being eliminated as part of restructuring to make up for a budget shortfall.
Assistant Vice President for University Relations Bob Edwards and Vice President for Student Affairs Gene Tice will lose their jobs in the restructuring.
The job eliminations, effective July 1, and other cuts were outlined in e-mails WKU President Gary Ransdell sent to the school’s faculty and staff Monday and Tuesday. Ransdell scheduled a faculty and staff forum for 3 p.m. today to discuss the cuts.
Ransdell, Edwards and Tice could not be reached for comment this morning.
“This has been a difficult process which has been transacted in a very short period of time,” Ransdell wrote in one e-mail. “Our staff in Financial Affairs is hard at work preparing our FY 2008-09 budget which will be presented to the Board of Regents next month. These reductions, along with the revenue enhancements from the tuition increase I presented two weeks ago, are being factored into our budget next year.”
The cuts were spurred by the state’s 6 percent cut to university budgets, which meant a $5 million loss in state appropriations for WKU. Ransdell has proposed, and the board of regents has approved, a 9 percent tuition hike starting next year.
“The fact of the matter is there was a $5 million reduction to the university’s budget going into the two-year biennium,” said Robbin Taylor, assistant to the president for governmental relations, who will become vice president for public affairs in the restructuring. “At the end of the day, difficult decisions were made ... the administration was hit pretty hard, and it was difficult ... but we have to rise to this challenge and move forward.”
Tice has been with WKU since 2000 and had a $147,264 annual salary. Edwards started at WKU in 2002 and had a salary of $95,472.
Other cuts and restructurings effective July 1 as outlined in the e-mails include:
In all, those cuts and others in the school’s divisions will save the university $3.58 million. Cuts in the central budget amount to $1.4 million, making for a total savings of $5,047,100.
The cuts are also part of a restructuring of the university’s vice presidential structure.
The changes include:
“Over the last several months, I have been considering a significant reorganization of our Vice Presidential-level administrative structure ...” Ransdell wrote in an e-mail. “Since then our $5 million state budget cut has forced more serious actions including greater efficiency and less administration.
“As our university continues to grow and mature, I want to continue to take advantage of our talent, leadership, and cohesive structural strategies which continue to fuel both our efficiencies and our progress. I believe the reorganization best addresses our budget cut mandate, supports our strategic plan priorities, and positions us to continue our progress in significantly measurable ways.”
