NIU President John Peters warned members of the University Council on Wednesday that NIU’s budget situation isn’t getting any better, and layoffs could become a reality.

“We’ve all been asked to sacrifice,” Peters said. “I think we’re in better shape than we should be.”

Peters said NIU is doing better than other universities because of the students and faculty.

“Here we are, we’re doing good work, have good students and our faculty is winning awards and research grants,” Peters said.

He said the budget will not get any better this year, and he wouldn’t promise job security.

Patricia Henry, NIU’s representative on the Faculty Advisory Council to the Illinois Board of Higher Education, told the council about a plan to make an opinion-editorial piece for the media on how the budget affects students.

“I think the idea here is not to whine, but get an idea of what’s lost in a budget cut,” she said.

Peters said he hopes there is only another year or two of dealing with budget cuts.

“I don’t know if we have any rabbits left in the hat,” he said.

NIU’s fiscal year 2003 budget was $111 million, while the FY04 budget is $102 million, a 8.2 percent reduction.

To deal with budget cuts, NIU instituted extremely selective hiring, deferred maintenance, extended winter shutdown and implemented a tuition increase.

The council also discussed a change in the academic calendar for the fall 2004 semester.

Originally, classes were scheduled to begin Aug. 30, with commencement on Dec. 19. The council voted to move the schedule back a week and begin classes on Aug. 23 and move commencement to Dec. 12.

The original dates wouldn’t have allowed sufficient time to process dismissals before the holiday break.

Eddie Williams, executive vice president of finance and facilities, said the decision would be better off for NIU economically.

“It does give us the opportunity in the winter to consider a longer closure,” Williams said.