How unimaginative. The only thing they can come up with when they are given $400,000.00 less dollars a year from taxpayers is to cut jobs and raise tuition. And these brainiacs get how much for a salary?

Huh, perhaps you may want to reread the press release … they are not filling vacant positions, which they do not need due to static (in reality dropping)enrollments … sometimes one does not need to be a genius to do the obvious … in regards to raising tuition of 2%, that is unfortunate but in light of the Liberal government reducing grants, the money has to come from some where …. are you offering a $400K donation?

How does eliminating a vacant position save any money?

By eliminating the positions, they are no longer budget items, therefore, balanced budget.

Remember, budgets are forecasts or projections of future financial flows.

The budget is a plan. The vacant positions were filled at one time in the past and were likely carried forward into the proposed budget.

By deciding not to re-hire into the positions which had become vacant, but still existed on the books, the total budget was reduced.

If they had enough budgeted income, they could have implemented a number of other options. One would have been to remove the positions, or some of them, and re-allocate the money budgeted (planned) for those positions for another use.

Some departments actually plan for budget cuts by building in nice to have but not necessary programs or projects so that when the time comes to cut they do not become dysfunctional.

But how to prepare for and survive budget cuts is another story. ;-)

Actually they are laying off 4.6 CUPE positions and not filling faculty positions that have been vacant for close to a year. Last year there was 2.6 CUPE layoffs which by the end of the year was close to 7 of them.

However spending on exempt staff is increasing and additional Managers are being hired. The whole budget document is on the UNBC web site and you can get the details yourselves.

Enrolments at UNBC have been flat lined for a number of years. They are not expecting this to change in 2015 or 2016, but are hoping for a 1% increase in 2017.

Furthermore the Government has in fact been over funding this University over the past 5 years, because funding is based on UNBC’s prediction of Full Time Equivalent enrollments annually and these predictions have been consistently higher than the actual enrollments. The Government has told them that they will no longer fund them this way, and as a result their funding has decreased.

So they have a dilemma and have to make some cuts to stay in business.

We have a very limited number of people in North Central BC to draw students from to attend UNBC and with the lack of growth in most towns and cities, it does not appear that this will change anytime soon.

How about another tuition freeze. Impose one and worry about it about eight years from now when the freeze folks have retired or moved on?

International pay more tuition so why not go after that market, have them fill some seats.

“We have a very limited number of people in North Central BC to draw students from to attend UNBC”

That is not an excuse. Universities back east have had much higher percentage enrolments compared to their catchment regions than UNBC, even the northern ones.

I believe one of the main factors that UNBC has going against it continues to be that BC remains a province that does not educate its own. The capacity increase in the province over the past decade has still not been enough to overcome that hurdle.

WELCOME BACK GUS

Gus says “I believe one of the main factors that UNBC has going against it continues to be that BC remains a province that does not educate its own”

You need to fill in the blanks on this one Gus … I don’t get how empty seats in the classrooms at both UNBC and CNC supports your argument that the BC provincial government does not educate its own.

UNBC’s enrollment troubles happened the moment the provincial government opened up more seats in classrooms in the lower mainland and on the island and those students were no longer forced to come North to pursue their post-secondary education.

There are now 20 higher education institutions in BC let alone the rest of the world.. Some what of a dilution of avaiable warm bodies I would think.

Was going to add, maybe the president bailed while the getting was good.

anotherside wrote: “I don’t get how empty seats in the classrooms at both UNBC and CNC supports your argument that the BC provincial government does not educate its own.”

I was actually referring to the reverse. The fact that BC, compared to other provinces in Canada, does not educate its own but still relies in part on importing a university/college educated workforce as well as accepting people with less formal education in some jobs means that post secondary seats in the more remote parts of the province are more difficult to fill.

So, how does one determine that BC does not educate sufficient its own? Look up the university and/or college enrolments in the provinces and relate those to the provincial populations.

Here is a good approximation of university enrolments in 2013/14.
http://www.aucc.ca/canadian-universities/facts-and-stats/enrolment-by-university

For the population, I used the 2011 census figures. I figure that is close enough for this purpose.

So here is the table by province with the total FTE undergraduate and graduate enrolment, the population, and the percentage of FTE per population. The table is presented from highest to lowest.
1NS38,320921,7274.16%
2ON437,24012,851,8213.40%
3SK30,0801,033,3812.91%
4NL14,900514,5362.90%
5PEI3,910140,2042.79%
6MB33,6501,208,2682.78%
7QC205,2107,903,0012.60%
8AB93,0403,645,2572.55%
9BC109,9204,400,0572.50%
10NB18,380751,1712.45%

The Canadian average is 2.95%.

For those who might wonder how many new seats we would have to create to come up to the Canadian average, that number would be in the 20,000 range or an increase of about 20%. Add another 20,000 seats if we want to move into the Ontario range of creating “knowledge workers”.

In my opinion, this province is dominated too much by UBC. Our medical program, for example, is theirs. In Ontario they also created a northern medical program. It was not attached to an existing program in the southern part of the province. It was developed jointly by Laurentian and Lakehead.

For us to move closer to the national average, we need to change our mindset.

One more thought, at the risk of posting too much … LOL

anotherside wrote: “UNBC’s enrollment troubles happened the moment the provincial government opened up more seats in classrooms in the lower mainland and on the island and those students were no longer forced to come North to pursue their post-secondary education.”

Students should not be forced to go anywhere other than to universities which have the programs that they are looking for. It is still cheaper to study while staying with family who can provide support without going broke. Specialty programs typically need large urban centers or be supported by policies which promote the development of “centres of excellence”.

I think the right number of seats were created in in the south. UNBC has managed to create a significant graduate school for its size. The medical program has helped. It needs more like that. Engineering might be next, but still tethered to UBC.

UNBC covers a region with a population of about 200,000. Given that, and an average provincial participation rate of 2.5%, there should be 5,000 FTE in attendance. If we were to move it up to the Canadian average of 2.95%, there should be 6,000 FTE in attendance. Add another to move it up to the Ontario participation level. That would allow a significant presence in the Northeast as well as the Northwest.

I should not be knocking the successes of the past of getting an independent university here in the first place, but we need to find the strong leadership again to create a viable plan and present it to the province in such a way that they will buy into it.

Gord Campbell did the biggest damage, granting small colleges, university status.

And forcing 1st and 2nd year students to purchase a mandatory meal plan could not have helped enrollment.