NIU’s budget cuts will come from the General Revenue Fund, a governor’s office spokesman said Wednesday.

NIU has until June 30—the end of the fiscal year—to scrape up the almost $900,000 in budget cuts in this fiscal year requested Monday by Gov. Jim Edgar.

“It’s not a matter of finding money. It’s a matter of not spending money and we’ll go up to the last day,” said Ken Beasley, assistant to NIU President John La Tourette.

How the percentage is calculated is good news for NIU. When the announcement was made, NIU officials were worried how the 1 percent cut would be calculated.

If calculated on NIU’s entire budget, NIU would have to find about $1.2 million. But because it is calculated on the general revenue budget, NIU has to come up with about $900,000.

The entire budget is calculated on all of the money NIU receives from all sources. The general revenue budget is part of the entire budget.

But the cuts are still painful.

“It is going to be difficult for us at this time of year to find those dollars because we are already into the semester and have hired all of the professors and instructors,” Beasley said.

“Our budget is labor-intensive and it will be difficult to find the dollars,” he said.

NIU officials have not specified where the money might be found, although some will come from energy savings and money saved while NIU was closed during the semester break.

No NIU jobs will be lost, although some might be deferred, NIU officials said.

Edgar asked for the cuts Monday to help ease Illinois’ cash flow problems and to pay state bills.

Edgar cut his own budget by 11 percent. Agencies beneath him cut their budgets by 2 percent.