YSU officials stand their ground while defending budget priorities

YOUNGSTOWN — Youngstown State University administrators are continuing to defend their budget plan after receiving backlash from YSU faculty and students on university spending priorities and recent academic cuts.

University administrators claimed budget spending priorities for academics and athletics are on the right track during a news conference this morning.

For the Fall 2021 semester, YSU reported a record-low student enrollment of 11,298. Enrollment declined by 1,398 students, or about 11% If student enrollment continues to decline, for the 2022-2023 school year, the university could face a revenue shortfall of at least $10 million, and possibly more, Vice President for Finance and Business Operations Neal McNally has previously said.

He also told Mahoning Matters the university estimates a $5.6 million structural deficit cut in response to this year's student enrollment decline.

Today, YSU Provost Brien Smith, and McNally said the university will continue to become a smaller institution in terms of enrollment. While the university is in fiscally sound shape overall, McNally said, administrators are looking to preserve the university's economic future by sunsetting academic programs with as few as zero students.

On the other hand, university athletic programs are seeing high enrollment levels, McNally said.

"None of our athletic programs are under-enrolled," he said. "If YSU athletics can no longer find students to fill a team, whether that be football or women's bowling, if we didn't have enough athletes to complete a team, we would definitely be looking to sunset those athletics programs."

YSU faculty from the Ohio Education Association called on university administrators to perform a non-academic audit, Mahoning Matters reported, to review spending priorities of YSU sports and administrative areas.

"It's hard not to view that as a stall tactic because the fact of the matter is the university has a great deal of flexibility to make changes on the administrative side, including the ability to reduce staffing levels in as little as two weeks," McNally said, claiming faculty cuts can take up to a year to conduct.

This story was originally published November 10, 2021 at 11:14 AM with the headline "YSU officials stand their ground while defending budget priorities."