South Carolina State University trustees met behind closed doors for three hours Thursday, but did not come out with a plan for dealing with a $6 million budget gap.

The administration recommended cutting $4 million from its personnel budget in a public presentation to the board. The board went into executive session to hear what that would entail. No details on that recommendation were given after they returned.

In addition, Senior Vice President of Finance John Smalls proposed using $1.5 million in federal stimulus dollars and $500,000 from the university's contingency fund to help plug the gap.

Officials say the university has lost $14.2 million in anticipated revenue since last year.

Following the meeting, President Dr. George Cooper did not dismiss furloughs or layoffs as possible options. He said the main goal in slashing expenses is to soften the blow to the university's academics.

"We tried to lessen the impact. I can't honestly say there is not some impact. Anytime you don't have the resources, you have to make choices," he said.

Cooper said the administration and board will make a final decision within 10 days. He acknowledged those decisions might not be popular.

Faculty Senate President Dr. Evelyn Fields said she appreciates that the board is taking its time to analyze the situation. She said the faculty is very concerned the shortfall will impact academic programs.

S.C. State professor Dr. Willie Legette has said he expected the administration to recommend furloughing faculty for at least 15 days as part of its cuts.

Many faculty members were packed inside and outside the boardroom Thursday, anxiously waiting to see if they would take a cut.

The Faculty Senate met earlier this week and threatened a vote of no confidence against the administration if they weren't included in the decision-making process.

Before Thursday's meeting, Cooper said he felt the faculty did have input. He said a group of the university's deans represented them at a recent meeting on the pending cuts.

Fields said she was invited to the meeting, but wasn't told what it would be about.

"We did not know what the agenda was going to be. We didn't know the discussion would be centered around budget cuts. Not having engaged the faculty up to that point, there was limited input I could give," she said.

Enrollment figures were far shy of the 5,102 students officials expected this year, including 253 students who attended summer school.

Only 4,548 students were enrolled with a schedule as of this week, the lowest number since fall 2005.

Trustee Lance Wright said the university doesn't have an enrollment problem, it has retention problem.

He pointed out new students come every fall but, for some reason, many of them leave. Wright compared the situation to a dog chasing its tail.

Cooper said that 300 more students were in the university's system to attend classes this fall, however they didn't complete the process to get enrolled.

He noted the university is going to contact those students in hopes of finding out why. Several trustees asked for a timetable on reporting that information, but he didn't give a definitive answer.

Trustee Martha Smith said the time for talk is over.

"We talked and talked and talked about things. We don't want to wait. This is a critical part. We need to move as though there is no tomorrow," Smith said.

She told Cooper she wants the report in the next two weeks.

Cooper said to remedy the situation, S.C. State needs to update its technology. In addition, the university needs to become more customer friendly and less bureaucratic to students, he said.

Board Chairman Jonathan Pinson said students who have a bad experience at S.C. State can easily vent their frustrations online for anyone to see.

"We will not tolerate insufficient work at this university. People that don't treat people as assets, they've got to go," he said.

Trustee Maurice Washington said university officials already have a road map to clear up retention issues because a comprehensive study on the matter was conducted in 2007.

"We've been there, done that. We'll back here in a year and a half if we don't hold people accountable," he said.

T&D Staff Writer Lee Tant can be reached at ltant@timesanddemocrat.com or by phone at 803-534-1060. Discuss this and other stories online at TheTandD.com.

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