Funding for higher education fell slightly along with the drop in Illinois’ income tax rate at the beginning of the year.
Western Illinois University lost 1% of its state appropriations, which is equal to about $520,000.
WIU Budget Director Matt Bierman said attrition dollars will be redirected to fill the gap. That’s money from the budget that was earmarked for salaries but went unused because someone retired or went on leave, or because of a delay in filling a position.
Typically, any available attrition dollars would go toward paying for deferred maintenance projects around campus that are normally done over the summer.
“Now we are into identifying what is critical deferred maintenance versus what is non-critical and try to address those things that really need it,” Bierman said.
Bierman said Western’s aging campus needs about $450 million worth of deferred maintenance. That includes building repairs, classroom improvements, and updates to infrastructure.
He said usually at this point in the year a list of deferred maintenance projects is created in preparation for summer.
“We’ve sort of said don’t even bother generating the list,” Bierman said. “We just won’t be able to do as many as what we’ve done in the past.”
