UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. – In late February, President Neeli Bendapudi shared a memo with college and campus leaders detailing Penn State’s current financial situation and the challenges facing units across the University as they work through a difficult fiscal environment.
Bendapudi urged faculty, staff and administrators to come together to manage costs and run the University more efficiently, while continuing to pursue new revenue sources. To read the president’s full memo, which also includes a number of frequently asked questions, go here.
“As an institution, we have been spending more money each year than we bring in, which has put us in a vulnerable state,” Bendapudi wrote. “Let me be very clear: At this moment, while the overall institution is not in a financial crisis, I do understand these changes will have a significant impact for some units.”
The president noted that unit leaders have autonomy and flexibility on how best to use the allocations they receive and it was a strategic decision not to do an across-the-board reduction or rescission as had been done in previous years, as those actions do not address the underlying issues that necessitated the rescissions in the first place.
Bendapudi is asking units to thoroughly review their budgets and take steps to meet urgent fiscal obligations. Every unit is facing different circumstances and some units are facing historic structural budget deficits that cannot continue unabated. Corrective actions may involve delaying program launches, deferred purchases or improvements, limited layoffs, restructuring units, as well as increasing revenues through new ventures.
“We are focused on a multi-pronged approach to reduce costs, find efficiencies and enhance revenues — all of which require changes in some of the ways we currently operate,” she wrote.
The president acknowledged that many of these decisions to balance the budget are difficult and she pledged to help units find the least disruptive ways to preserve and advance the core of Penn State’s academic enterprise.
“We can assist you in working through this from a financial aspect, from a personnel perspective, and from an academic excellence position,” she indicated. “Together, I believe we can accomplish our goal of putting Penn State on a firmer financial footing, which will ultimately allow the University to thrive in its mission of teaching, research and service.”
Bendapudi stressed that the University’s values of excellence, discovery, responsibility, respect, community and integrity will drive any approach and all decision making.
“We will continue to prioritize our commitments to be an extraordinary institution for students to receive a world-class education; creating space and opportunity for world-class researchers to engage in asking big questions and solving significant problems in an interdisciplinary way; to academic and research excellence; and to being an employer of choice,” she wrote.