Trustees discuss finances in face of recession

The IU board of trustees listened to complaints Aug. 13 from representatives from the IU School of Medicine and the IU golf course as they face financial losses.

“We’ve had a successful year. Of course the problems didn’t start to happen until later,” said trustee Thomas Reilly, who chairs the finance and audit committee.

The board met at IU-Purdue University Indianapolis and discussed the 2008-09 financial closing. One main concern was the IU golf course, which lost $164,000, adding to its $2.3 million deficit. The board expects a recommended solution to the deficit by December.

But the board will be hesitant to make excessive expenditures with dwindling state funding.

“We are no longer state supported, but state assisted,” said trustee Jack Gill.

With IU subsidizing areas on campus that do not make a profit, such as the Indiana Memorial Union, Gill said the school should have the business model similar to that of a private university.

The board said 86 percent of IU’s revenue comes from tuition, a number that will likely increase because of ebbing state appropriations, said Neil Theobald, vice president and chief financial officer.

Although out-of-state tuition will continue to increase, in-state tuition will continue to decrease as more financial aid and grants become available. Therefore, Theobald said, IU can attract high-ability, low-income students.

Representatives from the IU School of Medicince also said they need an additional $50 million to be adequately funded.

Indiana has a population of about six million and IUPUI’s campus has the only medical school, IU’s Executive Vice President and IUPUI Chancellor Charles Bantz said.

“The state of Indiana needs a good medical school,” he said.

The school only has the ability to have a strong focus on three areas of medicine: cancer, metabolic processes and neuroscience.

However, Dawn Rhodes, IUPUI’s vice chancellor for finance and administration, said their request of $50 million would be hard to gather without crippling other campuses.