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wiu712 wrote: Sun May 21, 2017 7:07 pm
Jak Tichenor, interim director at the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, sees a very dark future for the state universities if the budget impasse continues. He said: “If we have no movement until after the 2018 elections, I think it would be a certainty some universities would not open that fall. I think Eastern, Western, Northeastern, and Chicago State are all the top of the list. The Carbondale situation is pretty tenuous as well.”
When Carbondale runs their own campus into the ground, strands their Springfield medical school, and then robs $35M from Edwardsville, it's hard to see how Western is in more dire straights than Carbondale that is only "tenuous."
I agree, I don't see us as being quite in bad shape as SIU-C at this point. I think if they don't come up with at least some "stopgap" funding, we're all going to be really struggling through the summer, although we might be able to swing a couple more months out of the fall tuition once those payments come in. I've heard that the "higher-ups" were pretty torn up from having to do the layoffs and things last summer and will do just about everything possible to avoid having to do them again, so I don't think we'll see that again this summer. I do know that they are scheduling pretty much all classes and meetings into just a few buildings so that there's less classroom space to have to maintain (open, clean, unlock, have power turned on for, etc.)
But from all I've heard, SIU-C is in much worse of a situation than we are right now. We obviously don't have Fall 2017 numbers yet, but going off of last year, if you look back 1 year, 5 years, and 10 years, as a percentage of total enrollment, SIU-C has lost more than Western has for each of those increments. In terms of 10-year enrollment decreases as a % of total enrollment, Chicago State was worst, then Eastern, Northern, Southern-Carbondale, Western, and Northeastern. And in terms of the decrease of actual number of students, it's Northern followed closely by SIU-C.
Things aren't great around these parts, but we're not quite to that point yet.
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
Yea, that looks pretty much in line with the numbers I have. Here's my spreadsheet btw, if you're interested in the actual numbers as reported by each university back to 2002 or as far as I could find them: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing
For reference, all numbers are for the relevant Fall semester of each year and are the standardized number set that is required to be reported every year (I know for Western, that's "10th day" numbers...essentially the enrollment at the start of week 3, to give a chance for stragglers to get registered and for people who have to back out early due to financial issues or whatever to do so...I don't know if this is exactly the same at all state universities, but it should be a fairly similar data set). The numbers are generally available on each university's Office of Institutional Research website/page.
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
Beginning Fall 2017, all undergraduate students attending UMSL who are Illinois residents from any Illinois county will pay the in-state tuition rate at UMSL.
Front page headline article in today's Peoria Journal-Star:
UNACCEPTABLE: Illinois deserves better -- It's time to pass a budget and end this crisis.
It just should not be this hard.
With but one week to go until the May 31 deadline, state government is on the precipice of three consecutive misses at a budget. No other state capital in America can say the same. Illinois “celebrates” its 200th birthday next year; if this is not unprecedented, that’s news to us.
If Springfield cannot manage to agree on a spending-and-revenue plan in the next 168 hours or so — the Senate took a first step Tuesday, with revenue and appropriations bills now headed to the House — that almost certainly means a year four without one. If past is prologue, little of significance happens in an election year, which 2018 is.
By then, the Era of No Budgets in Illinois will have topped 1,000 days. By then, Illinois’ nation-leading unfunded pension liability will have swelled beyond its already unforgivable $130 billion, making it that much more beyond repair. By then, Illinois’ unpaid bills, now at $14.4 billion, will have soared so high no business in its right mind would continue that relationship. By then, at a rate of $11 million a day in additional deficit spending in the absence of a budget, Illinois will have accumulated billions more in red ink. By then, Illinois’ bond rating, already America’s lowest, may well be junk.
By then several universities — among them WIU, EIU and SIU — may have little other recourse but to close, unthinkable once upon a time. By then, tragedy may be all but inevitable as mental health services, domestic violence shelters, drug abuse treatment and elderly care have gone by the wayside due to state non-payment. By then, the lights at the Capitol may finally have gone dark with the state putting off one too many utility bills. By then, the exodus of population and brain power and business investment may have accelerated to the point of becoming irreversible.
In Peoria alone, the Deadbeat State’s unfulfilled financial commitments to local hospitals and other vendors, school districts and social service agencies climb into nine figures.
The eyes glaze over, so overwhelming are the numbers. We write in disbelief that it has come to this, that those we’ve elected — House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton and Gov. Bruce Rauner at the top of that list — have allowed it happen.
A “grand bargain” had emerged in the Senate with bipartisan input that spent $36.5 billion prior to Democrats going it alone on Tuesday. It contained some $3.8 billion in cuts, $7 billion in borrowing to pay down the unpaid bills, billions more in a temporary income tax increase (to 4.95 percent for individuals, from 3.75; to 7 percent for corporations, from 5.25, for seven years) and an expansion of sales taxes to include more services.
Notwithstanding the Senate vote Tuesday, our view:
To say we are not thrilled with an income tax hike, with taxes already high and wages effectively stagnant, is the understatement of the century so far. That said, with a structural operating deficit the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago — the collective voice of that region’s largest employers — pegs at $10 billion annually, we see no other way around it. We’d tax retirement income — Illinois is one of three states with an income tax that does not — and broaden the sales tax base to even more services to whittle this increase.
Illinois is in an unprecedented fiscal crisis. The perfect must not be the enemy of the good. If the patient dies before the cure arrives, nothing has been accomplished; bloodletting fell out of fashion long ago. We agree with the Civic Committee that employers generally want to stay, and to do that they need action for the long term, verifiable progress, predictability and transparency right now above all else.
But that does not mean we do not have our terms. The budget must be balanced. The governor should be given a package he can sign, which means a good-faith stab at reforms — in workers’ compensation, in public pensions bankrupting Illinois, in term limits for leaders (which we’d make retroactive), in reducing the number of local governments. If something does come out of this session, legislators cannot believe they are done. Illinois is still a non-competitive mess that screams for tax reform, especially on crippling property taxes. Spending discipline is not a one-time thing. Budgets can no longer be for buying votes.
Last year newspapers across Illinois banded together in an effort similar to this one under the headline, “Enough!” We’d hoped the pressure on legislators would become so intense and intolerable as to prompt action. We were wrong.
The thing is, Illinois should be a powerhouse state — blessed in location as the transportation crossroads of the country, with more Fortune 500 companies than all but three states, with top-notch research universities, with abundant resources and the talents of almost 13 million people. There is nothing wrong with Illinois but its politics.
And that’s what makes this all so unacceptable. Damn the politics (and we fail to see how continued inaction is good politics). Govern, for a change. Resolve never to return Illinois to this hellish place again.
And if our lawmakers still need an extra incentive, they should ask themselves but one question: How do I run for re-election on a do-nothing record, on standing up for the unbearable status quo?
I would say that this is the most pressure that has ever been put on both the Govenor and House/Senate in the past two years of "budget stalemate!" I totally agree with the comment about expanding the tax base and I would not mind if my pension was taxed even though I could get my head chopped off at school if I said this out loud at lunch time. Rauner was warned by "Big" Jim Thompson to approach Madigan cautiously to begin with and instead he walked into the Capitol swinging a sledge hammer. Oh well, thats 20-20 hind-site. Funny how SIU was not mentioned earlier in the discussion and now they seem to be in worse or equal shape to WIU! Gotta fix this so that we all can "march on neath the Purple and Gold! jc
Neckfansince71 wrote: Wed May 24, 2017 11:41 am
I would say that this is the most pressure that has ever been put on both the Govenor and House/Senate in the past two years of "budget stalemate!" I totally agree with the comment about expanding the tax base and I would not mind if my pension was taxed even though I could get my head chopped off at school if I said this out loud at lunch time. Rauner was warned by "Big" Jim Thompson to approach Madigan cautiously to begin with and instead he walked into the Capitol swinging a sledge hammer. Oh well, thats 20-20 hind-site. Funny how SIU was not mentioned earlier in the discussion and now they seem to be in worse or equal shape to WIU! Gotta fix this so that we all can "march on neath the Purple and Gold! jc
I think the thing with SIU (and many other schools) is that they're trying to ride a fine line between telling lawmakers that they desperately need money now otherwise very bad things might start happening at the school and telling prospective students (and their parents) that the school is doing fine and we plan to be here for many years to come. Usually what ends up happening with that is that you don't hear anything publicly until they absolutely have to say something.
As for taxes, I am entirely on board with expanding the tax base. Our property tax rate is pretty high (maybe highest in the US), but overall our income tax is fairly low and we have no vehicle property tax (which is why St. Louis is cracking down on Missouri drivers crossing the border to register cars in Illinois to save money). I know not everyone feels this way (even just on this board), but I would be more than happy to chip in an extra bit from my income to ensure that schools (both K-12 and higher-ed) and social services can get back on track to be able to properly serve the people of Illinois. Money invested in higher ed has repeatedly been shown to be of great return value from better educated residents getting better paying jobs and paying more in taxes as well as being able to work more efficiently and being more flexible in what they can do.
They need to figure out a budget that will keep the schools running, keep the social services working, but also allow a slightly increased tax rate on certain areas to help work down the unpaid bills and budget deficit. I realize that means that the universities will likely have to go with a lower budget than they had been working with a few years ago, but at this point, a bit of a lower budget is better than no budget at all (and all the uncertainty that goes with it). Let the schools know what they have to work with so they can make more long-term plans.
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
Western Illinois University Alum/Fan/Employee
Member of the Marching Leathernecks - 1996-2000
I'm retired, so taxing my pension would hit me on the chin. But I think it is a necessity. The tax on pensions as income would go a long way toward solving the pension underfunding. Also, I believe we need to increases taxes AND look at where we are wasting money, not just try to slash. Even just following the federal Social Security model where pension income above $25K individual or $32K married is taxed as income would help.
As for retroactive term limits, AMEN - 12 years would be 2 Senator terms, 6 House terms, and 3 traditional 4-year terms. That would pretty much guarantee prevention of the Madigan near 40-yr dictatorship as there'd be too much ongoing turnover to develop that kind of ongoing power.
Scott Lawson - Board Admin
jc