Next year’s budget cuts to the colleges were proposed for 2.5 percent, but now the possibility of cuts up to 10 percent are being considered.

“It is sad news, but we were told this is a distinct possibility,” said Michael Whiteford, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Whiteford has since formed a budgetary advisory group to find ways to respond to possible cuts to the next academic year’s LAS budget at different interval percentages between 2.5 and 10 percent.

“[The group will] provide advice on what to do, how to react and what options we should employ,” Whiteford said.

The group will be led by Paul Lasley, professor and chairman of sociology, six department chairs from across the college and three members of the LAS Representa-tive Assembly.

Provost Ben Allen said Whiteford may be acting on a conversation Allen had with him and his fellow deans regarding some of the ranges of reductions that may need to be made for the next academic year.

While there were many possibilities for reducing the cut, in terms of strategic thinking, Whiteford called the 2.5 percent reduction “unrealistically low.”

“The [2.5 percent] cut that we were thinking about now appears to be even a good dream, but unrealistically low,” Whiteford said. “We should start to think about a possibility for a cut which might reach as high as 10 percent.”

Ongoing faculty and staff searches will almost certainly be affected if the budget cut for the next academic year is in excess of 2.5 percent.

“This is information we have tried to convey to department chairs,” he said. “Because we don’t know what the extent of the cut will be, and even if we did, we wouldn’t know what the college of LAS and different departments would get.”

Whiteford called his actions a cautionary procedure.

“It wouldn’t be responsible to speculate,” he said.

“Unless there is an enormous windfall of money that comes to the university, it will look different. Beyond that, I would say I wouldn’t want to take any guesses.”

When the time comes to make decisions on changes, Whiteford said the college will try to do it as open and in as much of a participatory fashion as possible.

Allen said the university as a whole has not yet considered any cuts for the 2004-05 academic year.

“We have not decided anything on the reductions for [Fiscal Year 2005],” he said.