UF President Bernie Machen had an important message for the Board of Trustees Friday: Prepare for cuts.
The university has already eliminated $140 million from its budget during the last three years, but Machen said the speaker of the house and Senate president have told him there will be more budget cuts in the coming year.
Machen warned 2011-2012 will be the worst academic year because UF will have used $40 million in funding from the federal stimulus.
Senior Vice President of Administration Brian Beach presented a plan that would annually cut enrollment by 5.6 percent.
It would also raise tuition by 15 percent and raise the salaries of UF faculty 3 percent.
The plan would still cause UF to run a budget deficit of tens of millions of dollars until 2014.
Exactly how many millions depends on how much the legislature cuts university funding.
Machen said UF would also ask the legislature to make some policy changes to create revenue for the university. That would include increasing the percentage of students who come to UF from out of state.
“It could easily get worse before it gets better,” W.A. “Mac” McGriff, chairman of the Board of Trustees, said about the state’s budget crisis. “A lot worse.”
