To our campus community:

On April 12, the University of Iowa will enact a five-month moratorium on campus projects in an effort to defer cash spending. The deferral is necessary because the UI must close the funding gap caused by the newly announced late-in-the-year state funding cut of $5.49 million. Ongoing efforts to address these continuous state cuts while maintaining student and research excellence have impacted the care and modernization of our more than 250 buildings. Unfortunately, as this trend of generational disinvestment continues, the university’s options are becoming increasingly limited.

The moratorium will suspend all campus physical care and improvement projects until Sept. 12, 2018. At that time, the university will evaluate levels of state support to determine if the moratorium must continue. However, the current and pressing need to account for the fourth-quarter cut to the approved university budget forces this action.

There will be limited exceptions to the moratorium:

• Projects that have been bid and awarded or are already in the construction phase
• Projects addressing specific patient safety, public safety, or code concerns
• Emergency projects (typically related to critical/time-sensitive facility repairs)

Based on the number of UI projects currently in the design phase, the five-month moratorium will defer an estimated $5.5 million in general education fund cash flow. While this addresses the shortfall created this fiscal year, it does not address the shortfall created in FY19.

Additionally, in response to the generational disinvestment, in FY19 the university will need to advance cuts to centers and institutes in order to proactively address the ongoing reduction from the state. These additional cuts will protect the core educational, research, and scholarship mission of the university but will impact programs that were created because of previous state support.

Historically, with state support, the university created programs that provided positive impact across our state, region, and nation. Given the ongoing generational disinvestment from the state, these programs must now be reevaluated in order to determine the long-term feasibility of maintaining them without that support. Administration, in conjunction with academic leadership and shared governance, will determine the future of these centers and institutes within the university’s new budget allocation model.

The project moratorium could have numerous consequences. The condition of facilities may suffer, and repairs may become more expensive in the future. Savings in FY18 may translate to higher subsequent costs because of changes in the construction market during the moratorium period. In addition to the moratorium, the reductions to centers and institutes will impact citizens across Iowa’s 99 counties. None of these outcomes are desirable, but current circumstances have forced the UI to make these difficult decisions.

Bruce Harreld
President

Rod Lehnertz
Senior Vice President, Finance and Operations