NIU administrators, faculty and students have waited anxiously for several months to learn of Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s financial plans for higher education, and today they wait no longer.

At noon today, Blagojevich is expected to present his state budget speech to lawmakers citing ways to relieve the almost $5 billion state budget deficit.

“For the first time, the governor will officially reveal his intentions for fiscal year 2003,” said Melanie Magara, assistant vice president for NIU Public Affairs.

Indications earlier in the week surfaced that NIU would not have to cut the entire 8 percent from its current operating budget.

“Trying to take an 8 percent cut of an entire year’s budget out of the last quarter of the fiscal year would just be devastating,” Magara said. “We believe that’s not going to be the case, and we will have some smaller amount to deal with.”

State Rep. David Wirsing, R-Sycamore, said NIU most likely will have to make about a 3 percent reduction in its fiscal year 2003 budget.

Although the governor’s plan will be revealed today, Magara said that debate over his recommendations could ensue downstate for 6 to 8 weeks.

“For all the public universities, it’s going to be very difficult because they already have gone through cuts with the [fiscal ’02] budget and have gone through cuts with the [fiscal ’03] budget when it was put together a year ago,” Wirsing said. “There’s just not a lot of room to move around; this time around it will be much more serious.”

Regardless of the effect on NIU, President John Peters has examined different scenarios the governor’s budget could cause.

“The [Board of Trustees] has asked the president to look at all operations and they are looking at different scenarios and ways we can meet the fiscal ‘04 scenarios without the least possible impact on academic programming,” Magara said.

Since the majority of summer school falls into the fiscal ’04 budget, Magara said a decision as to whether or not classes will be cut back can’t be made until the situation for next year is clear.

“It’s really difficult for them to make an irrevocable decision before they know what the numbers are going to be,” Magara said.

She noted that since the budget situation arose, travel, equipment purchases and hiring for open positions have frozen.

“We’ve lost a cumulative total of $13 million over the course of the last year and a half, so we start fiscal year 2004 with that much less than we had in the previous two years,” she said. “We’re talking about cuts to what we call base budgets; it’s different to ever get that money back.”

Ultimately, the decision to cut back classes for the summer would be made by Peters, who Magara says has a strong advice system surrounding him.

“He’s getting a lot of advice and a lot of help, but it’s going to be difficult for a lot of us,” she said.

Live streaming video and audio will be provided during the Blagojevich’s address online at http://www.state.il.us.