Remarks by President Mary Sue Coleman to the Board of Regents concerning the budget

February 20, 2003

We’re planning not only for the cuts this year, but for next year’s state budget shortfall as well. We have a lot of work to do in upcoming months. We are going to work closely with the Governor and the legislature to manage our share of the cuts to university general fund appropriations. We will do our fair share. We know it won’t be easy but we are going to have to make the tough choices—and we will—that will enable us to accomplish the goals this state expects of us:

We must preserve the core quality of the classroom experience and the academic environment for our students—both the current students and future generations of students. We have to strike the right balance to guarantee the quality that we have always had here, while we minimize the tuition burden for our students and families as much as possible—and to continue the special commitment we make to the demonstrated financial need of all resident undergraduate students.

We have another very big challenge in front of us. We must do a much better job of demonstrating to the residents of this state that our universities allocate our state funding efficiently and just as important, that the money the state invests in its public universities is crucial to Michigan’s long-term economic recovery and well-being. We educate the state’s workforce, our faculty discoveries turn into new products and businesses, and our hospitals and medical staff care for many, many thousands of Michigan families every year.

I have asked Paul to talk about how we will guide the budgeting process during this very challenging time. I have asked him, and have told our university community, that we must do our best to make judicious budgeting decisions and preserve our highest priorities. We will reduce costs everywhere we can—from big-ticket items such as the energy bill and program dollars to smaller areas like cellphone use—because everything counts as we’re going forward.

And at the end of the day we need to keep our long-term strength, and our state’s long-term strength, at the top of our priority list.