Officials mull over worsening financial position

There could be layoffs at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Cave Hill Campus if that learning institution continues to witness a reduction in its operational budget, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Professor the Most Honourable Eudine Barriteau has warned.

The outgoing principal in her final report to the council meeting on Friday said that despite several improvements in critical areas even in the face of growing adversity and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the already financially struggling university now had to contend with continuous reduction in its annual budget.

“The Cave Hill campus is at the financial barebones. We are challenged that we cannot really go any lower,” said Barriteau.

While requests for a budget of $150.3 million was submitted to the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) and the University Grants Committee (UGC) for the 2020/2021 academic year, the amount approved was $138.82 million.

The approved Cave Hill Campus budget has been on a decline since the 2015/2016 academic year, dropping by a whopping 15.83 per cent from $188.87 million in 2016/2017, before increasing slightly the following academic year and decreasing every year since then.

“In the last year, which is 2020 to 2021, that reduction was 8.03 per cent. That is the adjustment that the campus had to make last year to gain an approved budget,” said Barriteau.

This month, the campus has submitted a recommended budget of $142.9 million for the upcoming 2021/2022 academic year, but the TAC and UGC have approved $138.75 million, a 0.05 per cent reduction from the current year.

“In the past year, we faced many challenges with aging faulty equipment and leaking buildings. Our submission to TAC last year represented 73 per cent of our 2015/2016 budget or a reduction of 27 per cent compared to the 2015/2016 budget,” said Barriteau.

“In the past six years we have generated considerable cost reductions through implementing many measures and we did this without any layoffs, but I regret to state that any further cuts in our operational budgets would mean that the campus would have to seriously re-evaluate that option,” she warned.

She said the Cave Hill campus has been fully compliant with the cost reduction and savings austerity plan it adopted in 2019, pointing out that expenditure has consistently been on the decline due to renewable energy initiatives, attrition of staff through retirement, stringent monitoring of part-time staff hiring, rationalization of courses and programmes, postponement of capital upgrades and savings through reduction on travel.

At the same time, Barriteau said the university was continuously seeking to increase its revenue-earning capacity, pointing to methods such as a suite of Masters programme and short courses, attracting more projects and grants and engaging in more targeted philanthropy.

She reported that in the last year the UWI had to increase its expenditure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Barriteau explained that not surprisingly, the learning institution had to spend hefty sums to retrofit classrooms and lecture rooms to enable hybrid teaching to accommodate both students overseas and locally. There was continuous spending on sanitization protocols and occasional industrial cleaning; upgrading of information technology and investments in cybersecurity software.

“The campus has gone through and into extraordinary lengths to reduce its dependence on the UGC funds to meet operational budgets. We know that the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed our success, but we continue to work towards more entrepreneurial and cost saving activities,” she said.

Lauding her team and the Cave Hill Guild of Students for their hard work and support during “this guava season – period of austerity”, Barriteau said the Cave Hill campus remains steadfast in its mission to deliver quality education to all Caribbean citizens.

Reviewing some of the campus’ achievements in the last year, Barriteau said in addition to adapting to doing all meetings online, staff completed training of post graduate certificates in teaching and learning, and the campus was able to invest heavily in adaptive measures.

“We repurposed funds to retrofit classrooms for dual mode physical distance delivery and invested heavily in information systems technology to accommodate our students,” she added.

Commenting on the financial situation, Vice-Chancellor of the UWI Professor Sir Hilary Beckles said while the learning institution was not there to make profit it must be managed in a “business-like” fashion.

“Managing your affairs in a business-like fashion is not the same as being in a business and therefore that is a balance that we have always struck – all public universities – making decisions for development while at the same time demonstrating that the resources made available to you are used with prudence and used efficiently and the results can be held in the terms of accountability,” said the former Cave Hill Campus principal. (marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb)