The budget decrease in May affected student assistants in different departments, including information technology, Clark Student Center and Moffett Library.

Marilyn Fowlé, vice president for business affairs and finance, said the budget decreased and they were not anticipating such a significant cut by the state.

“The budget decreased by $1.75 million and so we went up a little on tuition and fees. We tried to stay affordable for everybody but we couldn’t go up enough on tuition and fees to cover the shortfall. We had to look at ways to make the budget balance. We weren’t anticipating that the state would cut us that much,” Fowlé said.

A primary source of funding for the university’s budget comes from the state government which allocates funds using a formula, according to Fowlé.

“The state government would give us money – appropriations and they do that by a formula. The formula is driven by how many students you have, how many classes they’re taking, the type of class they’re taking and the level of the class and that’s about 25 percent of where our funding comes from,” Fowlé said.

Majority of funding comes from students and other sources such as the federal government and private sources.

“About 50 percent of our money is coming from students, so your tuition and fees, housing – room and board. We get some money from the federal government through grants, a lot of that is for assisting students, such as pell grants. The state also gives a lot of student aid such as Texas grants, Texas Education Public Grants (TPEG). We have some endowments which are private monies and that is 10 percent and most of it is for scholarships,”Fowlé said.

Valerie Maxwell, director of budget and management, said there was not a significant decrease in the budget for student wages.

“Considering that the university lost $1.75 million in state funding, making a small adjustment in the student wages is pretty good,” Maxwell said.

Fowlé said the new director of information technology made changes to their lab assistants’ duties in the computer labs which saved the university money. The previous strategy was to staff someone sitting there all the time, during the day and night, in case the printer ran out of paper.

“His model from the University of New Mexico is that you have a student worker that can go around and fill the printer if it runs out of paper but don’t have someone sitting there all the time. So that was about $100,000 that was saved by not having somebody sit there all the time,” Fowlé said.

David Sanchez, chief information officer of information technology, further explains why the change was made.

“Within our computer lab budget, one of our line items is our student assistants and that budget was reduced by about $85,000 this year,” Sanchez said. “When we found out our budget was going to be reduced by that amount, we had to come up with other ways to provide the same service with fewer people. We have looked to implement a process to provide support to the computer lab but not have a lab assistant there all the time.”

Sanchez gives details about the new responsibilities of the lab assistants since there were many small computer labs that were not being used often by students during the day.

“We now have a rolling system. We have our lab assistants primarily in the clark student center. However, we have another student who works here out of our building and they make the rounds each morning to put paper in the printers and to check the machines. If there is a problem in clark or moffet, they would go and check it.”

Since there are less lab assistants, it added duties to the current ones.

Jorrey Martin, special education senior, said, “It has made my job harder because I have to help out in the different labs even if it’s not my shift. My job is to answer the telephone in the telecommunications department, yet I now have to go to the different labs to assist in different areas while doing my job.”

The budget cut and lack of lab assistants impacted student assistants in Clark Student Center.

Cynthia Cummings, special events coordinator of Clark Student Center, said the decrease in the budget has forced them to cut back in some areas and will now have to train their student assistants to use the printer in Clark Student Center’s lab.

“The information technology department got their budget cut and as a result we have to refill the printers because they had their manpower cut significantly and do not have the manpower to do those duties now,” Cummings said.

Jessica Green, psychology senior, said, “I have to fill the machines with paper, assist people with scanning as well as directing students to an alternative to printing. Therefore, not having lab assistants adds more to my job along with what I already have. It becomes overwhelming because when I am trying to assist my customers who are my priority, I have to put them on hold to go and assist in the lab.”

This problem also occurs in the Moffett Library.

Kimberly Modeste, finance senior, said, “We receive numerous complaints due to the lack of lab assistants. Sometimes the students figure that the persons at the circulation desk are responsible to alleviate their problems. We are not trained to work in the labs and we get a lot of complaints in the deadly hours from 12 p.m.- 2 p.m. when there are no lab assistants”.

According to Martin, other than the additional duties, it has impacted student workers financially and emotionally.

“I have less hours this semester and there was no wage increase so it has been putting a strain on my payments. Prior to the budget cut, my parents never had to send any money but now they definitely have to assist me. As an international student from the Caribbean where we were affected by the hurricane, it is even harder for our parents to send money for us and this makes me very worried,” Martin said.

Green agreed with Martin.

“A lot of students rely on these jobs for an income and by reducing the budget, it is putting more pressure on the students than they already have,” Green said.

Sanchez said the office tried to have the least impact on students by helping the lab assistants, who did not graduate in May, to get jobs in other places on campus and were successful doing that.

“That was a hard part for us because we never want to impact students in a negative way, but the reality is we had to make some changes and we did not have the funding to pay. If we kept all the students, we would have ran out of money and we still need to maintain a certain level of service for the computer labs.”