Dear Colleagues,
As we have been communicating, campus leaders have been strategically working with their teams to eliminate our structural deficit and move to annually operating with a balanced budget. Today, we write to give you an update on these efforts for our next fiscal year, FY25, that begins July 1, 2024.
State Appropriation
Gov. Pritzker signed into law the state’s FY25 budget June 5, 2024. NIU will receive a $100.6 million appropriation for operating expenses, a 2% increase from the previous fiscal year.
FY25 Budget Approval by Board of Trustees
Today, the NIU Board of Trustees met and approved NIU’s FY25 budget that includes $439.3M in expenses against $423.9M in anticipated revenues. As a result, the anticipated budget deficit for FY25 is $15.4 million, a 52% reduction from the projected $32.2M deficit in FY24 and in line with the university’s goals. This projected reduction comes through a number of sources including a modest increase to AY25 tuition, fees and room and board; expanding our student housing capacity; improved retention; enlarging our community college partnership portfolio; and leveraging opportunities with our facilities, sales and services. The amount also includes $8 million in one-time revenue from the sale of iFiber – a broadband network that NIU helped to found more than a decade ago to provide access to affordable and reliable high-speed connectivity in the region.
The anticipated deficit does not reflect unknown factors, such as the flawed federal FAFSA rollout and the problems that it has caused for current and future students – concerns that we outlined in our May 6 message. Teams across campus continue to work diligently to support admitted students and help them navigate their financial options now that financial aid packages have been issued after months-long delays. If the FAFSA issue adversely impacts enrollment and revenue projections, we will need to take further actions to achieve the proposed budget.
Increments for Eligible Staff and Faculty Approved
Investing in our employees remains a high priority despite the university’s fiscal constraints, because our faculty and staff are a critical resource for the university and our students. Accordingly, during today’s board meeting, President Freeman brought forth increment recommendations, which are accounted for in the FY25 budget, for non-represented staff and faculty. The board approved both recommendations; eligible non-represented staff and faculty will receive 3% across-the-board salary increases to be implemented on, and effective, July 1, 2024.
Those employees who are represented by unions or other legally recognized collective bargaining groups will receive negotiated increments pursuant to the specific provisions of applicable, existing collective bargaining or other future negotiated agreements.
Greater Strategic Focus and Innovation regarding Personnel Decisions
Our ability to invest in our employees requires that we rely less on temporary solutions for temporary staffing situations. In our May 6 message, we shared the need to assess current and future use of extra help, non-essential overtime and additional-pay with the goal to slow, pause or eliminate. With this effort underway, Human Resource Services has been working with units to bring forward and consider strategic and innovative approaches to how and when we hire and/or make personnel decisions such as refilling or creating positions. This type of collaboration and planning speaks directly to being good stewards of our resources and will be our standard practice moving forward.
Increasing Efficiencies
Throughout the summer, division leaders and teams are meeting to identify ways to increase efficiencies, whether through evaluating course enrollments, capacity and frequency of course offerings; to evaluate priorities to identify lower ones to pause or eliminate; and to expand or develop new ways to achieve a balanced budget that is academically responsive and fiscally responsible. We anticipate our next update on these efforts to coincide with the Sept. 19, 2024 Board of Trustees meeting.
Summer orientation sessions and recruitment activities are underway, and we ask that each of you do all you can to support students to enroll for fall. Additionally, as Huskies, you each play a critical role in being good stewards of our resources so that we can achieve the university’s mission, vision, values and goals. We thank you for your commitment to this responsibility.
Together Forward,
