The University of Illinois goes through a lot of money in a year — more than $5 billion, in fact.
But most of it is restricted to specific uses — gifts from donors for a designated building; grants for a particular research project; income from the medical clinics in Chicago. It can't be used to pay an English professor (unless it's designated for that purpose).
So when the governor talks about cutting nearly $209 million from the university's appropriation — 31.5 percent of its state funding — it is a "significant hit," says Randall Kangas, UI associate vice president for planning and budgeting.
The UI gets about $667 million in state general revenue funding, plus more than $1 billion in state-appropriated tuition income, or $1.765 billion in total. That $209 million represents a 12 percent cut to the UI's unrestricted funding, Kangas said.
"State funds really are the skeleton of the university," Kangas said.
What does $209 million buy, in university terms?
Two Springfield campuses, and then some, in terms of total budget ($88.8 million) — or four if you consider just their $53 million in unrestricted funding.
At Urbana, it covers 60 percent of the campus instructional budget ($345 million), or nearly the entire budget for the huge College of Liberal Arts and Sciences ($232.4 million).
This article was published online in The News-Gazette on February 20, 2015.
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