NIU President John La Tourette released a memo Thursday explaining why he lifted NIU’s hiring freeze.

La Tourette said budget cuts from employment deferrals and energy savings during semester break provided an excess $550,000 in funds required to cover the summer instructional program during the last two weeks of fiscal year 1991 (late June) and an excess $150,000 to cover the summer faculty research program.

These funds can be used because they were not supposed to be trimmed from the budget, he said.

“The primary consideration was to meet the $900,000 cut (requested by Gov. Jim Edgar), but there were major expenditures that had to be met before the end of June,” La Tourette said.

In all, NIU was able to scrape together $1.6 million, including the identified excess money. NIU will provide the excess money before the next fiscal year beginning in June, the president said.

“Through all the changes in the budget, we were able to cover it. Some were done for things we were not to do, and some were done for things we thought were low priority,” La Tourette said.

Because of the excess funds, NIU only requested $200,000 from the Academic Affairs Division—a small fraction of the NIU budget. The $200,000 request should help the Academic Affairs Division through an internal deficit which will be addressed in the next week.

The freeze, officially lifted today, gives departments the green light for hiring. “All hiring requests which were not acted upon during this period can, therefore, be processed,” La Tourette said.

“We are incorporating a modest salary increment in our planning scenario, as well as identifying funds which will have to be directed to unavoidable inflationary increases,” La Tourette said.

The inflationary jumps include the hike in postage rates. Also, April will bring a 12 percent rise in the minimum wage from $3.80 to $4.25 and an expected increase in utility costs.