SAS officials seek solution to budget deficit

Long-standing financial difficulties continue to plague the School of Arts and Sciences, and administrators say they are still searching unsuccessfully for ways to solve the school's ongoing budgetary problems. SAS's budget deficit stands at $1.9 million at the close of fiscal year 1996, marking the first time SAS ended a year in debt, according to Deputy Dean Frank Warner. College of Arts and Sciences Dean Robert Rescorla said SAS has relatively little control over its main sources of income and expenses, including tuition revenue. At the beginning of the fiscal year, finance officials predicted the school would have a $4 million deficit, but they were able to resolve half the original amount through "very tight management of programs," Warner said. Warner attempted to put the SAS deficit in perspective, noting that universities and colleges are dealing with changes in state and federal funding, along with the general financial difficulties college students' families are facing. He added that SAS's deficit is only one-and-a-half percent of the University's $130 million budget and therefore is "not a major problem." But Warner said administrators have not found any "concrete answers in resolving the deficit." Rescorla noted that in budgetary issues, SAS can only directly control the number of faculty it employs. "A primary source of income for the school is tuition, but the school sets neither the tuition cost nor the number of students it admits," he added. SAS was able to cut its deficit last year by leaving some faculty vacancies unfilled, Warner said. He noted that several professors also took leaves of absences, saving the school more money. In order to reduce the deficit, former SAS Dean Rosemary Stevens cut the American Civilization and Regional Science departments two years ago. Although Stevens met with criticism at the time, Rescorla praised her handling of the budget situation. "Rosemary Stevens worked long and hard to make the staff support of the school the leanest at Penn," he said. Rescorla said the school reduced the number of standing faculty members from 475 to 450 during the last year. But he added that he does not know of any further reductions in faculty size. Warner said most of SAS' resources were exhausted by the initial $2 million cut. The school and the University's central financial administration have discussed how to cut the budget further, and those talks will continue, according to Warner. He said he hopes to expand the school's masters programs, a move he thinks could generate funding for SAS. This could make up for the financial losses that the school experiences in its graduate education and teaching assistant programs, Warner said.