Cutting the Funds

Student funded organizations such as the Student Government Association and The Southern DIGEST may experience drastic budget cuts in the near future, if not next semester, according to university officials.
Why?
The answer lies in the drastic drop in student enrollment.
According to officials in the Office of Finance and Administration, departmental and organization heads received notices that they would need to revise their spending budgets due to a decrease in enrollment.
A move Flandus McClinton, vice-chancellor for finance and administration for Southern, said was a bit premature.
According to the six letters that had been mailed out, student organizations were reportedly going to be cut in five figure sums.
McClinton said each department that received a letter was later contacted and told to halt budget modifications. All of them expect for the Department of Technology and Network Services who were asked to modify their budget by $113,000.
According to officials in the budget office, auxiliary budgets also made major modifications in three specific areas.
The Smith-Brown Memorial Union anticipated cuts in their budgets of more than $100,000. The Baranco-Hill Student Health services saw cuts in excess of $130,000 and the Department of Residential Housing received cuts in excess of $770,000. These costs were offset by prior years funding, McClinton confirmed.
McClinton said student organizations can rest easy and have nothing to worry about despite the cuts in other departments.
He said the letters that had been sent to those organizations requesting their budget be reduced was a very premature and should have waited until the registration period was completed.
McClinton said he was initially unaware those letters had gone out and responded by saying his office was reevaluating the situation.
“The second phase of enrollment standards mandated by the Board of Regents has caused shifts in the budget,” said Traci Abraham, executive director of Admissions and Recruitment. “There was an anticipated loss of incoming freshman by about 1,000 but only about 300 were loss.”
When asked whether or not her department experienced any budget cuts, Abraham said SUBR Chancellor Edward Jackson knows recruitment is the “life-blood” of the university and without new students there would be even further declines in the budgets that the university is experiencing.
Lynn Dickerson, interim vice chancellor for Student Affairs, said the question is not how much the budgets were cut by but instead why is the enrollment down.
Abraham said she and her staff are prepared for the important task of increasing the enrollment of the university.
Christopher Mays, a sophomore sociology major from Atlanta, said he thinks there is a decline in enrollment because of the lack of professionalism exhibited by both the faculty and staff.
“We are the customer and it is about time that the administration recognize that, because if they don’t Southern will cease to hold the esteem it was once known for,” Mays said.
Jerry Jones, a junior political science major from Alexandria, said the loss in enrollment and retention is due to “an administration not invested in their student body but more on self-preservation.”
Jones said administrators need to be more proactive instead of reactive in the Office of Student Affairs.