Town Hall Meeting

President Robert Pignatello told students, faculty, and staff that further budget cuts had to be made to the sustainability plan for LHU at the town hall meeting on Tuesday. “This is truly a call to action for us as an institution, as the family I think we are,” Pignatello said.

The sustainability plans the PASSHE universities have to create is part of the system redesign that began in the 2017-2018 school year as a result of the 90 million dollar reduction in state funding that was enacted in 2011.

According to the PASSHE strategic plan for 2020, “State System universities are continuing to seek the right balance to address the continuing impact of the $90 million reduction in state funding enacted in 2011; limits on pricing and affordability; and personnel cost increases, including major increases in the System’s required contributions to the state’s pension funds.”

These plans are the new annual reporting mechanism to bring more awareness to each school’s financial and operational conditions.

These sustainability plans were submitted on Jan. 17. The first drafts of these plans were reviewed by chancellor Dan Greenstein and the board of governors on Feb. 10 and Feb. 11.

After the review, Greenstein sent a memorandum on Feb. 13 that reaffirmed the guidelines for the second drafts that are due in May. This memo includes the call to reduce the use of temporary staff as well as the call to eliminate low-enrollment programs. “So we too must choose, and as with the General Assembly, we must choose now. Delay is not an option,” Greenstein said on his blog on Feb. 13.

“We will at some point receive that list of low-enrolled programs and that’s not to say that we[LHU] will eliminate all those programs, we are going to have an opportunity to consider them,” Pignatello said. These plans will be taking effect over the next five years at all the PASSHE universities. LHU has the sustainability plan as well as other documents concerning the plan available at the website at: lockhaven.edu/university_planning/index.html