This is one of a series of articles on budget cuts in UC Davis' schools and colleges, including the three divisions of the College of Letters and Science.

While it is premature to speculate on how many layoffs the College of Biological Sciences might be forced to make in the coming year, “it’s getting harder and harder to avoid them,” said Ken Burtis, the college’s dean.

“Thus far we’ve eliminated positions through retirement and attrition, so we’ve managed to avoid layoffs,” he explained. But Burtis is running out of avoidance strategies, he said. Faculty retirements have slowed down—this year instead of the normal four or five, there were only three—and “there hasn’t been huge interest from the staff in voluntary separations.”

$490,000 already cut

Burtis has already completed the planning process for the $490,000 in cuts the college was required to make for the fiscal year that started on July 1. Now he is anticipating up to $1 million in additional cuts for the 2009-10 fiscal year.

So far, the cuts the college has made fall under the category of “across the board,” he said. “But at some point, cutting across the board becomes so damaging that we recognize that we will have to be more strategic.”

Burtis plans to convene a group of college faculty and staff that he will charge with exploring new cost-saving strategies.

The dean is hopeful that the new group will turn up some creative solutions. For example, greater use of information technology might enhance the efficiency of undergraduate advising, he said. If this could be achieved, then staff and faculty could focus more on complex advising issues, which would help alleviate the overload resulting from vacant positions.

Classes

Burtis emphasized that the college has been striving to protect its teaching budget.

Thus far, he said, current budget woes have not seriously impacted class schedules. Due to past financial crises, the college has already made cuts affecting teaching, including offering its smallest classes once every two years rather than annually and cutting the number of teaching assistants assigned to many courses.

Burtis does feel that it is inevitable that class sizes will increase, given that offering fewer sections is one of the most straightforward ways to achieve savings.

Laboratory courses, the most expensive and one of the most important of the college’s offerings, will be closely scrutinized for efficiency, Burtis said. “Again, it is a strong hope on the part of the college to protect these courses,” he said, “But we will also be trying to make them as efficient as possible.”

Stimulus funds up, matching funds down

Despite the challenging funding situation, the dollar amount of extramural research awards administered by the college is up 8 percent over last year, Burtis said, noting that “this is a real testament to the efforts of the faculty and staff.” The college is waiting for the outcome of various grant proposals submitted by faculty under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, including a $15 million proposal for a new neuroscience building.

While Burtis indicated that he is hopeful that many of the proposals will be funded, it won’t be long before the budget crisis takes its toll on other research funding sources. For example, with its reduced budget, the college has fewer resources to apply toward extramural proposals that require matching funds.

Growing pressure

Faculty and staff in the College of Biological Sciences have been increasingly feeling the pressure of greater workloads, Burtis said.

“In the dean’s office, for example, we didn’t refill the position of manager for undergraduate academic programs when it became vacant,” he explained. “Now pieces of that job have to be picked up by other people, which adds onto jobs that were already fulltime.” Similar situations are occurring in every department in the college, he said.

“These pressures make it harder and harder to get things done in a timely way,” he said. “And at some point, our mission suffers. It’s tough on everyone, and uncertainty makes it even tougher. This college has very dedicated staff and faculty, but they’re being stretched to the limit.”

More UC Davis budget news.