The university is facing a $929,000 budget shortfall next year due to insufficient headcount, or the number of expected full-time equivalent students. In response, on Monday, the Student Government Association Student Fees Commission emailed organizations that get student fee funding asking the groups to outline what a 5% to 10% budget cut to their group would look like.
On Monday morning, SGA’s Student Fees Commission met to discuss fiscal year 2026 budgets in advance of the planned fees hearings scheduled for this week. Typically, the Commission meets annually to hear different organizations and their preferred funding amount for the next budget cycle. Organizations are on a rotating cycle, so not every organization has a fee hearing each year. Now, groups that are not on this year’s cycle are being asked to submit last-minute reports.
What would have been a standard student fees hearing switched gears after the Commission shared that the university was facing a $929,000 budget shortfall. Lyndsay Pletcher, WSU’s executive director of university budget, said the Commission had just been informed of the shortfall on Friday.
This required the Commission to delay the start of student fees hearings until Wednesday, and in the meantime, different groups and entities are being asked to evaluate what a substantial funding cut to their organization would mean.
Some of the questions include:
- “What would a 5%, 8% or 10% budget reduction to your FY26 Budget look like?”
- “What would the impact be to the services provided by your entity?”
- “How would you make up/absorb these cuts within your budgets?”
- “What would you have to change? What services would go away?”
- “Is there a staffing impact to this?”
Organizations were alerted Monday late morning and are expected to prepare and submit this report by Tuesday, March 3, at 3 p.m., according to an email sent out to campus groups that receive student fee funding. It’s not clear if all groups that receive student fees funding received the email.
