Funds and Grants Being Placed on Reserve

The withheld monies begin with $100,000 of funds once at the disposal of the Registrar. But that isn't a padded expense account. $80,000 of it should be for the maintenance of major buildings. Our buildings are not all in a good condition; deferred maintenance, as everyone knows, leads to increased costs later on.

The rest was to be for upkeep of the grounds and site and for the acquisition and maintenance of furniture and Registry equipment. (The grounds on this campus, of course, don't need to be kept up: they should be dug up and planted.)

Over $50,000 has been taken from academic departments and facilities, including the Computing Services Centre, "for essential running expenses and equipment and materials." The Research, Equipment and Publications Funds have been stripped of $40,000. The Leave Fund has lost $20,000. the library $15,000, and a miscellany of other allocations have also been reduced.

Tomlinson states that he is "now confident that the University's financial position for 1979 is reasonably secure". He follows this with the somewhat contradictory statement that "the measures... can only be viewed with considerable disquiet."

In that latter statement, he is quite right. I have already noted that the funds "placed on reserve" make up the major part of the total redaction. Tomlinson says, "Because of the essential - on some cases critical part that the majority of these allocations play in maintaining the University's fundamental activities, a primary objective in the forthcoming months will be to ensure that these reserved funds are returned in full to the parent funds at the earliest possible date." He also says, "In the event that the financial outcome of the economy and salary saving measures described in b) and c) (running expenses and salaries - see break-down above), assessed in conjunction with the block grant funding provided for 1980, is inadequate to enable the full restoration of the majority of the reserved allocations, the University's situation will be one for the deepest concern." (the 1980 grant hasn't been announced yet, but you can stake the Minister's salary that it won't be good.)

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