UNMC confirms plans for 4% across-the-board cuts

The University of Nebraska budget approved by the Board of Regents last month left a more than $20 million hole that will have to be plugged.

One campus in the NU system has already made plans for how it will contribute.

“Just last week, UNMC announced a 4% across-the-board cut for its colleges, centers and institutes due to projected federal research funding reductions," NU President Dr. Jeffrey Gold said in a letter sent to faculty and staff on Thursday.

John Keenan, a spokesperson for the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, said each college and unit will be asked to reduce its budget by that much for the 2025-2026 fiscal year.

Keenan said details on specific cuts are not yet available, “but the purpose of the rebudgeting is to act proactively to ensure that UNMC can continue to provide research breakthroughs that improve the lives of our fellow Nebraskans.”

Gold, who has been on a statewide listening tour this week, said in the letter that other NU campuses will share their plans for cuts soon.

Those cuts will be on top of what Gold said are “structural deficits” at the University’s campuses in Kearney, Lincoln and Omaha, and they come despite a 5% increase in tuition.

UNL Chancellor Rodney Bennett said in March that the campus is working on a plan to reduce its permanent budget by $5 million for 2024-25 fiscal year, and departments will be assigned a “proportional share” of the total cuts. He also said at the time that UNL was “initiating plans for an additional permanent budget reduction of $10 to $20 million, in the event such a reduction is necessary early in the next fiscal year.”