UNC and the state budget cuts, 1989–1991

The full story

On April 26, 1989 Student Congress offered the University a $10,000 loan from surplus student fees to soften the state's 5 percent spending cut, a gesture administrators said they could not accept without General Assembly approval. After a $3.2 million state cut and a spring freeze on non-personnel spending, UNC closed the 1988-89 fiscal year on June 30 with $792,000 in unpaid invoices carried into the new year when the State Budget Office refused a last $2 million supplement.

On January 11, 1990 budget officials told deans and department chairs that a $2.8 million cut in state funds for the third quarter meant a 12 percent cut in non-salary spending and new limits on hiring. Provost Dennis O'Connor called it very serious; state officials blamed Hurricane Hugo relief and weak tax revenue. On February 20, after the state cut UNC's second- and third-quarter money by $3.4 million, Vice Chancellor Ben Tuchi froze 194 vacant state-funded jobs, banned most overtime and announced a moratorium on spending state funds, and called layoffs a vague possibility. On February 26 more than 85 nursing students gathered in Carrington Hall after a senior class was told to take an exam from an overhead projector because the School of Nursing could not pay for copies; the class refused to sit the test and it was rescheduled.

On June 27 about 50 members of Graduate Students United protested at the Old Well against a proposed $1.3 million cut from the College of Arts and Sciences, which the group said could cost up to 150 teaching assistants their jobs; O'Connor told them a 3 percent cut was certain and he expected more. The General Assembly cut the University's base budget 3 percent and its first-quarter cash allotment almost 2 percent more, and by August 22 UNC had canceled 58 class sections, mostly introductory courses. A 10 percent cut in library positions shortened Davis Library's week by nine hours and the Undergraduate Library's by 18.

On September 10 Student Body President Bill Hildebolt called the first general meeting of the student body since May 1970, and about 1,500 students, faculty and administrators gathered in Carmichael Auditorium to hear Chancellor Paul Hardin, Rep. Joe Hackney and student leaders urge them to press legislators against the cuts. The next day students held Save UNC Day with a rally at Polk Place and a panel of legislators; Black Ink regretted that few Black students took part. A September 13 memo told units to prepare for a further cut of 3 to 3.5 percent, listing layoffs of State Personnel Act employees among the options, and Hardin warned the Faculty Council that staff, unlike faculty, were not protected from layoffs. On September 29 about 100 students, faculty and staff members wearing black armbands picketed outside Great Hall during the Chancellor's Luncheon for governors, trustees, alumni and legislators; Graduate Students United, the Student Environmental Action Coalition and student government organized it, and Mayor Jonathan Howes said he supported it.

On October 2 Gov. Jim Martin spoke with about 85 students in the Pit, saying he would consider an in-state tuition increase and exempting UNC-Chapel Hill from a 2 percent fund reversion. On October 4 UNC-system president C. D. Spangler said he would give away his $142,520 salary, $10,000 to each of the 16 campuses, partly because of the cuts. Departmental plans had proposed about 50 layoffs, but on October 8 Hardin said the University would meet a 3.2 percent cut without layoffs, saving about $12 million, $7.3 million of it by leaving positions vacant. At University Day on October 12 Graduate Students United members held signs outside Memorial Hall, and the Conference of Chairs of the College of Arts and Sciences said it would petition the governor and legislature to restore the budget to its 1989-91 level. On October 26 Hardin told the trustees that, under a plan he worked out with athletic director John Swofford, the Athletic Department would give $200,000 a year of post-season revenue to academics for five years. A November 12 Physical Plant memo said classroom and office buildings would be heated only from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays starting by December 1.

On February 21, 1991 Dean Gillian Cell told Arts and Sciences chairs to cut class sections for 1991-92 because of an expected loss of the lapsed-salary money that paid graduate assistants and temporary teachers; UNC was already offering 4,265 sections that spring against 4,585 a year before. On February 28, after a memo warned that about 20 assistantships would be cut, leaders of the Graduate History Society presented demands to the history department's advisory committee that assistantships be restored to 1988-89 levels and new graduate admissions halted for fall 1991, and on March 4 Graduate Students United resolved that further cuts would irreparably damage graduate programs, as departments cut graduate students' pay by 20 to 70 percent. In March the Visitors Center in Morehead Planetarium closed when its only employee left and the state twice refused to let the University fill the post.

On March 5 Hardin announced that the University would stop managing the Carolina Inn after September, offering its 71 full-time employees priority transfers to other UNC jobs; the inn had lost more than $332,000 in 1990-91. On April 4 the Faculty Council unanimously rejected legislative proposals to raise the student-faculty ratio, take 40 percent of research overhead receipts and cut funding for faculty outside the State Personnel Act, and petitioned the General Assembly to raise revenues instead. By April 19 a memorandum from Spangler had ended faculty leaves paid with state funds, and by September 10 the admissions office had been told to admit no full-time undergraduate transfers for spring 1992 because the cuts left the University over-enrolled. On October 11, under a law passed in July, the Board of Governors named UNC-Chapel Hill and nine other campuses special responsibility constituent institutions, able to move unspent money between budget lines instead of losing it, and Hardin said he was very pleased.