Dylon Harrison
News Editor
During his state of the university address, ISU President Kevin Satterlee announced that the university has an overly-inflated emergency budget.
This extra money had been previously pulled from the university’s annual state funding for an undisclosed number of years and stored away.
The exact amount of this fund was not revealed, and no specific plan for how it will be spent was laid out.
“The university needs to be strategic in how we use these funds,” said President Satterlee. “It will not happen all at once, and it may take a year or two to figure out the right way to invest these funds so that they provide the greatest benefit to ISU students.”
The university is not rushing to spend these funds, instead choosing to take as much time as needed to ensure the funds are used appropriately, Satterlee said.
“We should not rush to spend funds just because we have them, but rather spend the right amount of time assessing the needs of the campus and assessing the needs of our students to ensure the investment has a substantial positive impact,” he said.
ISU is not expected to face any immediate repercussions from the state due to holding onto this excess funding.
“When the legislature appropriates funds to the University, we have a public trust to ensure those funds are put towards our educational mission,” Satterlee said.
The university’s administration is working towards fixing the current issues with budgeting, both with these extra funds and overspending from the annual budget.
“As a University, we have work to do to look at our financial situation and ensure that these funds are best serving our students,” Satterlee said. “We have to build a budget model that ensures each college and department has the funds they need to provide quality programs and services.”
Budget issues are not uncommon for universities. One source of concern for ISU is the declining enrollment numbers.
“We have enrollment declines that must be addressed to ensure we are serving the educational needs of Idaho,” Satterlee said.
This type of large, extra budget is not expected to be collected again. The administration plans to use this uniquely large amount of money, currently available to the university to help improve the experience of the ISU community.
“We must strategically spend this money with the right amount of due diligence so that this one-time funding makes a resounding impact on our future trajectory,” Satterlee said. “We owe that to our students.”
Although there have been rumors that the university’s former administration is to blame for these current budget issues, President Satterlee said this is not true.
