A virtual town hall meeting was held to discuss the measures in place to improve the projected 2024/2025 operating budget deficit on Nov. 18. The meeting was held in Needles Hall and attended by President Vivek Goel, Vice President and Provost, James Rush, and Vice President Jacinda Reitsma. 

Goel began by discussing how in 2019 the federal government cut domestic tuition by 10 per cent, then froze it. He said the freeze continues, and has been extended for at least two more years. “The province has also frozen our provincial grant and capped the number of domestic students that we can admit,” Goel stated. “Our November’s enrollment data showed that we’ve enrolled around 30 per cent fewer international students than last year’s meeting. Just half of our target. Meanwhile, inflation and market volatility continue to result in increased costs. With approximately 80 per cent of our operating budget for employee salaries and benefits, growth in salary costs as a result of inflation continue to rise even if we keep the same number of people.” 

“With fewer international students enrolling, the freeze on tuition, no big increases in government grants and increase in cost, we need to find ways to reduce spending to balance the budget,” Goel said. Goel expressed how the province will not make any changes to the tuition framework structure of operating grants or quarter caps on enrollment for at least the next few years. The federal government has also made it clear that they stand behind their recent decisions on international student caps and immigration targets.

Rush, said that “a big part of this trend is putting pressure on tuition based revenue.” He emphasized that the actual enrolment levels of international undergraduate students have been decreasing compared to the university’s aspirational target. 

Reitsma outlined UW’s plans to improve the projected 2024/2025 operating budget deficit. “We simply need to make changes to the number of people who work at the university in order to address the budget deficit, and there are different ways for us to address these challenges,” she said. “But the most important one is our hiring freeze for both staff and faculty positions, not for critical and social positions.” 

Reitsma emphasized that the reason we need to move to a hiring freeze is because we aren’t seeing the changes we want with current reductions. She mentioned how the areas of information technology, finance, communications and marketing will be under functional review, which means that the university will look at the financial responsibilities that are distributed across campus. “We chose these three areas to start with as they are also linked to our risk assessments, cyber security, reputational risk and financial risk. These reviews will be shared in the coming weeks and will require coordination across all areas of campus,” Reitsma stated.

Reitma said there will be a continued refinement of the budget throughout March and April. “There will also be very active discussions on an ongoing basis on the reasonability of addressing our budget challenges,” she said. “We are also activating the development of a framework for a strategic enrollment management process with the integrated planning and budgeting process.” 

Students, staff, and faculty were given the opportunity to ask some questions during the question-and-answer period at the end of the virtual meeting. One of the first questions raised was about the impact of budget cuts, specifically how they will affect the ability to support students and maintain the quality of education, and how the university will ensure that these changes do not negatively impact the student experience. Goel responded, “I think as we are making difficult decisions ahead, we will want to prioritize our core mission. But I think we also have to be clear that given what we just saw in terms of the budget projections, we can’t just continue to do the things the way we’ve always done them. There are some amazing opportunities, with new pedagogical methodologies, with new technologies to think about the ways in which we deliver our academic programs that will be better experiences for our students and potentially saving costs.” 

Another important question was raised, as to why UW is building so many new buildings when people are concerned about jobs, and whether there will be funding available to upgrade and renovate older buildings and facilities. Rush answered, “while we’re committed to implementing budget controls and reductions, we also need to think about how the university’s going to be sustained in the future and how we’re going to support, strength, into the future, especially because of the uncertainty about what that is going to look like. So we also have the challenge of continuing to make investments in those things. 

“At the same time that we’re struggling, on the operating budget in an annual cycle. So we have to help us meet our goals for the future as well as our very short term needs. So, for instance, that’s why, we’re continuing the commitment to math for building the Math 4 building, which is well underway in terms of setting aside the resources to be funded.”