tl20021209-000 "1 The ToweigITTDlib Baltimore's #1 College Paper - Published Twice-Weekly - www.thetowerlight.com Monday, 12/9/02 'Retention soars to all-time high 5 Police talk tips for safe shopping 5 Leguizamo delves into new film role 13 'Body Shots' not in it for long haul 15 Departments News Campus Briefs Nation 5 7 8 Arts 13 Sound Bites 14 Book Review 15 Sports 20 Athlete of the Week 17 In This Corner 20 Classifieds 15 Opinion 2 Budget crisis impacts campus USM cuts to affect more than $30 million of TU's '03 fiscal year general fund allocation Sarah Breitenbach The Towerlight Friday afternoon, acting President Dan Jones announced the University's plan to manage a 3.5- percent budget cut recently issued to all schools in the University System of Maryland. This cut will affect $30,375,372 of Towson's 2003 fiscal year general fund allocation. The USM has also been instruct-ed by the state to give $12,100,000 of its accumulated fund balances to the budget reduction strategy. In addition, USM Chancellor William Kirwan has asked each of the 11 colleges and universities in the system to reserve an additional 0.3 percent of their budgets to pre-pare for possible future cuts. For Towson, this means reserving $2,603,603 that will be held on campus. ""The system itself has decided that we need to hold it in reserve because we are not certain that this will be the last of the cuts,"" Jones said. ""We'll hold it on campus. We won't be returning it at this point."" In a letter issued Friday and addressed to ""Colleagues,"" Jones stated that the administration's goals and guiding principles in han-dling the cuts are to ""protect aca-demic programs, minimize the impact [on] critical services and defer, where possible, equipment investments."" Jones emphasized the impor-tance of preserving academic pro-grams under the pressure of the cuts. ""When you're making cuts you look for the opportunity to cut everywhere before you do any-thing,"" he said. ""Academic pro-grams and the support services [are] essential for students to oper-ate."" - Planning for the budget cut began last spring. Jones said University officials were expecting something of this nature. ""We made a commitment last Snow sparks sledding Towson style Steyr, Lafferty 772e Towel-light Sophomore Aaron Wheeler crashes on the sidewalk outside of Tower A after his chair, taken from the Susquehanna Lounge, fell off of two dining hall trays. Wheeler, like many TU students, decided to find creative ways of enjoying the approximately 6 inches of snow the Towson area received last Thursday. spring with the senior team in place because we had the cut coming,"" he said. ""We've sort of been planning for this. We have the best senior team. They are just really remarkable peo-ple."" Jones com-mented that Senior Vice President and Chief Fiscal Officer David Harnage has been ""very valuable"" in working out the budget issues. He also affirmed that the budget has been appropriately han-dled and TU will safely survive this first blow to the budget ""We can get through this first round of cuts ... [without harming] the division of aca-demic affairs and the key support services necessary for students to continue with the quality educa- ""The system itself has decided that we need to reserve because we are not certain that this will be the last of the cuts."" Dan Jones Acting President tion,"" he said. In order to distribute the cuts around the campus community, Jones and others have established reduction actions to influence finances in five separate depart-ments: Administration and Finance, University Advancement, Student Services, Academic Affairs and Central Accounts. According to Jones' letter, Administration and Finance will experience a total reduction of $1,037,762. There will also be an See BUDGET, page 7 Today High 27 Low 13 Tuesday High 36 Low 30 Wednesday Thursday Friday High 36 High 46 High 46 Low 30 Low 29 Low 37 "