At Kansas University Medical Center, state budget cuts are forcing enrollments down, hampering an effort to obtain National Cancer Institute designation and causing additional staff reductions.
Only about 2,400 students pay tuition on the KU Medical Center campus, leaving its budget much more reliant on state funding than other regents institutions in the state.
And yet, when it comes to allocating state cuts during the past year and a half, the medical center has had to absorb similarly sized hits as other universities.
Ed Phillips, vice chancellor for administration at KU Medical Center, said the $14.4 million in lost state funding since July 2008 is about equal to the entire combined budgets for the School of Nursing and the School of Allied Health.
Nearly 70 percent of the medical center’s state revenue and tuition dollars are tied up in personnel, Phillips said.
It’s likely KU will continue to have to limit or reduce enrollments in the schools of nursing and allied health, and the cuts are beginning to have an impact on the effort to achieve National Cancer Institute designation, Phillips said.
While the Kansas Bioscience Authority provides some funding to recruit new faculty, the ability to retain them once they arrive is compromised, because of a reduced ability to pay for salaries, space and other infrastructure, Phillips said.
“It’s the state budget that provides for those things,” he said.
