The University of Maine’s flagship campus in Orono recently asked all of its departments to trim budgets by 7% to address an $18 million budget shortfall projected for the next fiscal year.

UMaine is aiming to reduce expenses across the university by this amount to generate savings and close the budget gap, said Samantha Warren, a spokesperson for the University of Maine System. The public university’s departments, including administration and athletics, were all given the same target for budget reductions and are expected to submit draft proposals by Dec. 19, she said.

“We know this will require difficult decisions,” Warren wrote in an email to The Maine Monitor. 

Warren said reductions have been required in previous years, and that the university’s finance office sent instructions at the same time it does every year to complete the budgeting process. The University of Maine System, which oversees the state’s public universities, will vote on the budget in the spring. The 2027 fiscal year begins July 1.

Warren also said several universities in the system are managing “modest deficits,” but she wasn’t aware of any that have issued reduction targets. In addition to the Orono campus, the system includes schools in Augusta, Farmington, Machias, Fort Kent and Presque Isle, as well as the University of Southern Maine in Portland and Gorham.

As the Orono campus identifies possible cuts, Warren said the system is committed to transparency and will abide by collective bargaining agreements and the school’s shared governance policy for faculty and administration. 

She added that UMaine’s next steps will be informed by data and its strategic planning process — an ongoing “strategic re-envisioning” exercise — that the university started in 2024 to rethink how it serves its students and create fiscal stability.

There will be opportunities for “creative, collaborative problem-solving” through February, Warren said. Then, the university will present a preliminary budget to the University of Maine System. Warren added that there will be public sessions to review the budget before the system’s trustees vote on it in May.

Despite securing record levels of investment at the university, Warren said the projected deficit is a result of several challenges, including inflation and increased debt as the university addresses decades of deferred maintenance on the Orono campus that exceeds $1 billion.

In a December email that Warren provided to The Monitor, UMaine President Joan Ferrini-Mundy said preliminary budgeting projected a decline in student credit hours for the 2027 school year.

The university must consider different solutions, including boosting student recruitment and retention efforts, expanding partnerships and finding opportunities for “strategic restructuring and reinvestment,” she wrote. 

“You have provided invaluable input on themes, ideas, and strategies throughout the ongoing (strategic re-envisioning) process,” Ferrini-Mundy wrote. “These must now inform the preparation of your FY2027 budget submission.”

One staff member at the university, who asked not to be named over concerns about job security, was not surprised when the announcement of cuts came days ago. However, the staff member said that deciding on cuts across the board during one of the busiest months of the year feels “highly disrespectful” and is “heartbreaking.”

This staff member said that departments have already been looking at how to shave their budgets but had expected the strategic planning process to guide a more tactful approach to cuts. Making broad cuts across the board under a tight turnaround will be challenging, the staff person said.

University leaders presented preliminary budget projections for the next year in a campus presentation in late October.

They said that preliminary revenues are expected to hit $274 million in the next fiscal year, but expenses are likely to exceed $293 million. This budget gap, which was originally $19.8 million, was later narrowed as the university found new revenues and reduced expenses by securing additional scholarships from the UMaine Foundation and seeing increased staff attrition, among other things, Warren said.

UMaine’s current revenues also lag expenses. Revenues this year amount to $277.8 million, while expenses have reached $279.9 million. This year’s budget was balanced with $2.1 million in reserve funds.

Last spring, the University of Maine System passed a $688.9 million budget for its universities.

The system said in a statement at the time that, while the state once funded a majority of the system’s operations, appropriations to universities have decreased since the recession in the 2000s and no longer keep pace with inflation. To maintain affordable access for students, the system implemented a hiring freeze, incentivized retirements and left positions vacant. The system also delayed deferred maintenance of buildings and sold property.

At UMaine, tuition and fees from students are major revenue drivers, Warren said. While preliminary budgets predict a slight enrollment decline for the next school year, the university is “aggressively recruiting” in states such as Massachusetts and Florida, she said. The university is also investing in popular programs such as engineering and computing, business and criminal justice.

Warren said that challenges will only compound in future budget cycles if the university does not act now.

“Closing the projected FY27 shortfall through structural solutions is the single most important step the university can take together to stabilize UMaine and its finances for the future,” she wrote.

This story was originally published by The Maine Monitor, a nonprofit and nonpartisan news organization. To get regular coverage from The Monitor, sign up for a free Monitor newsletter here.