Austerity

As anyone who manages a household, a business, or any other enterprise is all too painfully aware, when expenses rise and income doesn't keep pace, something has got to give. And clearly institutions of higher learning enjoy no special immunity from this basic fact of life.

With the College already operating on a zero-deficit budget for this year, on orders from the Trustees, it seems that further belt-tightening is in store for fiscal 1975-76. President Kemeny reports that the Trustees, at their October meeting, concluded that the preliminary budget forecast for the year starting July 1, 1975, is overextended and directed the administration to present at the January meeting a proposal for budget cuts and the effects on the College those cuts imply. "In short," said the President, "we have passed from the period where our mandate was to slow down the growth of expenditures to one where significant cuts have to be made."

With a major portion of the budget in compensation, "we have no alternative but to reduce the number of employees," he went on to say, "if we are to continue to offer reasonable salary increases to those who work for the College." In determining where reductions are to be made, "we will keep in mind Dartmouth's primary commitment to undergraduate education," President Kemeny stressed.

A 14-member college-wide Council on Budgets and Priorities, with representation from the faculties of the undergraduate college and the three associated schools, the administration, students, staff, and alumni, has been authorized to advise the President on the use of college resources.

The Council will be expected to review each year's budget as it is being drawn up, assessing plans and priorities reflected in the financial allocations and considering long-range projections and their implications. It is also charged with consideration of "important questions bearing on such matters as the reallocation of resources, changes in the values of systems of priorities and commitments, or expenditures of capital funds having significant effect on operating budgets."

The President has emphasized that he will also "look to the new Council for guidance" on where budget cuts, dictated by the Trustees' mandate for a no-deficit operation, can best be made.