Last week, Central President James Gaudino sent out a memo to the Central community, which detailed some of the budget cuts that the university plans on making over the course of this fiscal year, which runs from July 1 to June 31, 2015.

“In June, Governor Inslee asked all state agencies, including baccalaureate institutions, to ‘model’ 15-percent budget cuts,” the memo states. “No university has complied with this request.”

However, Gaudino stated in the memo that cuts still need to be made because the university is expecting a decrease in state funding after this year’s legislative session. The state currenly provides only 13 percent of the university’s total budget.

Several university departments will need to make cuts over this fiscal year, and some of the cuts have already started to be implemented.

Gaudino said Academic and Student Life will be asked to make cuts of up to 5.4 percent.

The departments of Public Affairs, University Advancement, Athletics, and the office of the president will all make cuts equaling 8 percent of their current budget.

The departments of Facilities, Information Services, Human Resources, Organizational Effectiveness and Security will make a five percent cut over this fiscal year.

According to Linda Shactler, director of Public Affairs, most of the cuts are to administration positions that currently are not filled. The cuts were finalized on Monday.

There are four positions in the president’s division that are currently empty which are being cut

“We’re going to cut overhead in administration as much as it’s safe and reasonable,” Shactler said.

The Finance, Budget, Auxiliaries, Contracting and Enrollment departments have already started making cuts that will total 12 percent over this fiscal year, the memo said.

These cuts will allow the university less money to spend on recruiting new students. This would lead to less incoming money through tuition over the upcoming years, leading to a budget gap that would need to be accounted for.

Last fall 2014, The Observer ran a story about the large amount of money that Central has in reserves.

Gaudino addressed that fact in the memo, stating that some of this reserve money has already been used to cover the budget gap, and if the university doesn’t start making cuts now, the reserve money will be spent and the gap will still be present.

The administration is waiting for the legislative session to conclude to make more cuts, if necessary. That may happen as late as spring 2015.