NMU Faculty and Staff,

Happy 4th of July. I hope you had an enjoyable holiday weekend with family and friends. To those of you who participated in the NMU contingent of the Ishpeming and/or Marquette parades, thank you for representing the university. I get many compliments on Northern's parade participation. The passing of the 4th of July serves as a reminder that we are just a little over six weeks away from the first day of the fall semester. As such, I'd like to update you on a couple of items.

BUDGET PRESENTATION: Gavin Leach, vice president of Finance and Administration, and I will hold a budget presentation at 11 a.m. Wednesday, July 13, in the Huron and Erie Rooms of the University Center (Note - this is a room change). We gave this presentation to the Strategic Budget and Planning Advisory Committee last week and wanted the campus community to have the same information. We will tape the presentation as well so that we can send the link to faculty and staff, realizing that many faculty are not on campus during the summer and many staff are on vacation at this time. The presentation will include a review of the PowerPoint given to the Board of Trustees in June, along with an overview of the breakdown of the NMU budget. Although we've been able to bring our budget deficit down from $4 million to $2.3 million through a combination of actions, including restructuring our tuition and fee model, as we move into the fall semester we will need to quickly to assess and address the remaining shortfall.

RESTRUCTURING TUITION AND FEES: When the higher education state appropriation bill came out of conference it had several things that significantly impacted Northern and our approach to tuition and fees this year. It's important that faculty and staff realize that this conference committee higher education bill came out shortly before the NMU Board of Trustees meeting to set tuition and fees, causing Northern to have to quickly make some alternative plans for the board to consider. The changes to the higher education appropriations bill began when the Legislature had to cut $445 million from the 2017 state appropriations bill following the May revenue estimating conference projections of lower state revenues for fiscal year 2017. The higher education funding was decreased by $21.2 million. That change dropped Northern from a 2.9 percent increase ($1.76 million) to a 2.6 percent increase ($1.17 million). Additionally, the conference committee lowered the tuition restraint cap from 4.8 to 4.2 percent. The combination of these two factors negatively impacted NMU by about $1 million.

Additionally, for universities who were considering busting the tuition restraint cap, the conference committee higher education bill added additional punishment beyond the two-year ban on capital outlay by saying that the state could take back any amount of state funding at any time during a fiscal year for cap violators. Prior to that change in the bill, the board had asked administrators to explore what would be the highest tuition and fee increase that could be charged and would still keep NMU as the second most-affordable rate among Michigan's 15 public universities. That rate was 12.3 percent. However, with the threat of losing an unknown amount of state funding – potentially all of our increase – the board decided to stay at the 4.2 percent cap and make up some of our increasing costs through restructuring our current tuition and fee structure.

CHANGES TO TUITION AND FEES: As I wrote in my campus-wide email following the board meeting and was detailed in the subsequent Campus Connect article, the major changes to the tuition and fees model are differential rates for upper and lower division students (the change occurs after 56 credits); new and modified course fees ranging from $5 to $50 assessed to NMU's highest-cost academic areas; changing the cap on flat-rate tuition from 18 to 16 credits; and giving the recreation pass to all students as part of tuition and fees but with a refund option to those who do not wish to have a recreation pass.

COMMUNICATING THE CHANGES: Since setting tuition and fees, a lot of offices and departments have been busy communicating the tuition and fee changes to incoming and current students, as well as their parents. You can view information provided to parents in the June 23 issue of the NMU Parent Partnership electronic newsletter. There has also been an email sent to students who had registered for more than 16 credits prior to the NMU Board of Trustees setting tuition and a postcard is being prepared that will be sent to students' home addresses for viewing by students and parents that outlines all of the tuition and fee changes. Billing statements will be posted to student accounts Friday, July 22, and the payment deadline is Wednesday, Aug. 10. Special thanks to the Student Service Center, Academic and Career Advisement Center and Dean of Students Office staffs for all you've done to communicate these changes to students and family members.

THE 1% DIFFERENCE: One point that is absolutely key for NMU faculty and staff (students, parents, alumni and legislators) to understand is the widening gap between high- and low-tuition universities created by having the tuition restraint cap implemented by percentage. Northern has strongly proposed that the cap should be a dollar figure or the highest amount between a percent and a dollar figure. In the House version of the higher education bill, this choice was included but it was eliminated during the conference process. Consider this: Northern and Michigan Tech increased their tuition at exactly the same rate this year – 4.2 percent, the tuition cap – however, MTU, which has the highest tuition in the State of Michigan, will earn about $1 million more with that increase than Northern, which has the second-lowest tuition in the state. This is because for every 1 percent of tuition increase issued this year Northern received $97 per student while MTU got $154 per student. Northern was $2,186 per year/per student below last year's state average tuition and if we had been at the state average, we'd be bringing in $12.7 million more in tuition revenue this year. The bottom line is that even with all of the changes in tuition and fees this year, Northern remains an outstanding value for students.

CONSTRUCTION AND RENOVATION UPDATES: The two Center/Summit Street apartment buildings that were identified for demolition are down. The relocation of Psychology to the New Science Facility is complete and we are currently preparing space in Gries Hall for History, Philosophy, Political Science and Economics. Regular summer maintenance is also being completed on the Center Street and Lincoln Avenue apartments. Finally, we had hoped to begin the site preparation and demolition of Payne Hall at the end of June but have had a slight delay with bidding process. EdR anticipates having this resolved shortly and then plans will be back on track to bring down Payne. Engineering and Planning will send out notifications when construction in that area begins as fencing of construction zones will require some changes in walking routes between the Learning Resource Center and Quad I halls.

IN CLOSING: Work on addressing the budget has begun. Your division leader has been given a budget reduction target and h/she is working with their direct reports to review options. I hope you will come to the budget discussion Wednesday or view the presentation online once the link is distributed. It helps when the campus community understands the critical elements of the overall budget before tackling division, departmental and program budgeting. Obviously, it's vital to continue our work to increase enrollment through new recruiting and retention initiatives. Nothing will help our bottom line as much as an upward turn in enrollment. As we said in the new strategic plan, now is the time for vision and courage to lead transformational change.

Fritz Erickson, President