The University of Alaska Fairbanks could cut as many as 250 positions this year to help offset a massive budget shortfall, Chancellor Brian Rogers said Tuesday.
Rogers, who spoke at the Greater Fairbanks Chamber of Commerce luncheon, said UAF is anticipating a $20 million to $30 million budget gap next year as the state’s oil fortunes dwindle. A huge drop in North Slope oil prices — from about $110 per barrel in July to less than $50 today — has come with signals that state funding will decline by 7 to 10 percent, he said.
“There’s going to be no part of the university that’s unaffected,” Rogers said.
Rogers said UAF expects to eliminate 200 to 250 positions next year to help fill the gap. That comes after scrapping 160 positions on campus in fiscal 2014, including 55 full-time jobs. UAF has about 4,100 employees, divided almost equally between full-time workers and part-time and temporary positions.
“We’re a resilient institution and we’re a resilient community,” he said. “We know we’re going to make it through what’s going to be some tough cutting.” But Rogers said UAF will undoubtedly look different when it emerges from the current budget crunch.
Rogers has been through this before. He was UAF’s budget director in 1986, when an abrupt crash in oil prices triggered a statewide recession. The University of Alaska weathered that dip, he said, and has a history of surviving in Alaska’s boom-and-bust economy.
“It’s not like we can go down to the Legislature and say, ‘Give us back that money,'” he said. “They don’t have it.”
“We’re going to be a smaller institution than we are today,” Rogers said.
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