Budget cuts could eliminate WCU's service mission

By Rose Hooper

To deal with the state's anticipated $850 million budget deficit, state legislators have asked the UNC system to cut $125 million. Each chancellor was asked to submit state budget reductions of almost 7 percent. For WCU, the cuts total more than $3.478 million.

"The proposed budget cuts effectively eliminate WCU's service mission," Chancellor John Bardo said when he learned of those cuts in April. He emphasized that WCU's focus must remain educating students.

Among others, the cuts could eliminate the Mountain Heritage Center, the Mountain Resource Center, Western North Carolina Tomorrow, Local Government Training and the Mountain Aquaculture Center. Some 65 jobs could be lost, according to WCU officials.

But as Senate leaders this week unveiled additional details of their budget proposal, cuts to the UNC system might not be so drastic. The Senate is now calling for a 2 percent reduction in positions at each of the 16 campuses.

Among the senators' proposals is a 5 percent across-the-board increase in tuition, which would be offset for students by increasing need-based financial aid. For colleges and university students, that would mean $8.9 million additional next year and $1.06 million for community college students.

"We know that we in the university system have to bear our share of the burden, and we appreciate the fact that the Senate Education Appropriations Subcommittee has minimized the cuts to the university system," Bardo said this week when he learned of the latest version.

"If this plan is finalized as is, at Western it will result in the loss of 13 to 15 positions, rather than the loss of 65 to 70 positions we faced under the earlier 7 percent budget cut proposal. We will be able to absorb most of these cut positions through re-allocation, which means that relatively few people should lose their jobs," Bardo said. "Because we have had a month's notice that there could be significant budget cuts, we have been assisting people in the affected areas in finding other jobs on campus."

That's the best case scenario with some cuts, but no programs closed.

"Wait a minute," some voters say. Last Election Day didn't three of every four North Carolina voters cast ballots in favor of a $3.1 billion bond issue for the university and community college system?

True. North Carolinians delivered a mandate for access to educational and economic opportunity through higher education. While the bonds will fund the buildings needed to absorb enrollment growth, the public must look to the General Assembly for the operating funds to carry out the mandate.

Bond money to renovate old buildings comes from a different pot and cannot be mixed with the pot that funds service projects or the pot that funds teacher salaries.

With state funding tied to enrollment, teaching students will remain the top priority, university officials maintain.

According to state leaders, the budget deficit can be attributed to the shortfall in 2000 tax revenues, an economic slowdown and Hurricane Floyd expenses.

Generally, when the state Legislature asks universities for budget reductions, they allow the chancellor and administration to make the cutting decisions. But, this time, while they are asking for recommendations, the legislators are expected to make the final decisions.

WCU alumni and supporters have been encouraged to contact their legislators and ask that "to the extent budget reductions are necessary under current fiscal circumstances facing the state, the university be given the operating flexibility and regulatory relief needed to manage them in a manner that maintains quality and inflicts the least possible damage to programs for our students and the state as a whole."

State senators are expected to vote on their budget by the end of next week. From there it goes to the House. The state's new fiscal year begins July 1.

On the cutting edge . . .

Closing the Mountain Heritage Center at Western Carolina University might start a trend, said Mary Jane Queen of Johns Creek community.

"If they took away that piece of our heritage, they might take away some more. People could get to where they just wouldn't fool with mountain heritage," said the1999 recipient of the Mountain Heritage Day Award.

"And that would be a pity," said this mountain musician and balladeer who has spent her lifetime keeping mountain heritage alive.

Faced with the state's $850 million budget crisis, the Mountain Heritage Center could be on the chopping block. Along with it could be the Mountain Resource Center (with its programs like Western North Carolina Tomorrow) the Local Government Training Program and Smoky Mountain Development Association.

In fact, as Chancellor John Bardo put it, the cuts could eliminate Western's service sector.

"Lots of folks don't know, but the $500,000 revitalization of downtown Bryson City came from a grant Western North Carolina Tomorrow wrote," said WNCT community development specialist Phil Gibson.

The Smoky Mountain Development Association assists local entrepreneurs with access to small business loans, thus creating jobs in a 14-county region.

Local Government Training provides training for local elected officials, eliminating the time and expense of traveling to Raleigh. That division of the MRC is currently assisting the county with its Smart Growth meetings.

"I knew state budget cuts were happening, but I can't imagine them cutting the Mountain Heritage Center," said Juanita Burrell. "Even though I was born here, I learned a lot about my heritage from the center, especially from exhibits like the Scotch-Irish Migration. The center is such a vital part of our heritage here in the mountains."

Inez Smith, a former docent there, agrees.

"It's the most important thing we have here in the county that makes people aware of their heritage," said Smith, whose grandfather's ("Little John" Cable) bear-hunting picture hangs at the center.

"I guided people of all ages through the center and it didn't matter if they were young or old, they still learned. Some people can learn by reading books but for other people it takes actually seeing it with their eyes and touching it in a hands-on experience and that's why the center is so important," Smith said.

Nancy Potts Coward, a former high school English teacher, appreciates how the Mountain Heritage Center preserves culture.

"If people think Horace Kephart is dead, they need to go to the Mountain Heritage Center where the Kephart exhibit with its books, journals, collections, the instruments he used and touched, his cot and his lamp... all bring the man to life," Coward said.

The poet Stephen Vincent Benet came to Highlands one summer, Coward said, and "captured the mountain people well" in his poem "John Brown's Body," which reads:

"They are dying now or being educated, which is the same.

One need not weep romantic tears for them,

But when the last moonshiner buys his radio,

And the last, lost wild-rabbit of a girl is civilized with a mail-order dress,

Something will pass that was American

And all the movies will not bring it back."

So it is with the Mountain Heritage Center, Coward said.

Back to Archive: 05/31/01.