SUNY Fredonia continues to look at slashing costs, and more cuts to personnel and programs could be ahead.

The university’s vice president of finance and administration Wayne Lynch pointedly focused on individual department costs during a report at this week’s College Council meeting. The School of Music, a possible focus of cuts, has offered a proposal for a restructuring of itself that it says will save money.

Lynch showed a series of projections of “cash run rates” for the university. “The biggest item I’m going to highlight here today is, there should be no illusion: 80% of our expenses are in salaries,” he said. “That is the largest area of focus on the expense side (for the) institution.”

Lynch said recent “labor actions that came via the voluntary separation plan” will cut some expense because those people will not be replaced.

However, “we are still far off target, and labor is going to be a continued area of focus on this campus. You’ll hear complaints and concerns that we are not filling labor and/or that we have to take labor action to remove people from service at the campus.”

He later said, “Expense control on labor, (a) hiring freeze, and reductions in force are going to be continuing… Probably, in the next year, as we think about it, it cannot be avoided. 80% of our costs are in labor.”

Lynch said the SUNY system has a goal for Fredonia to reduce its structural,deficit to $5.8 million this year. “If I take our current expense projection, I’m already $2 million behind. … It’s going to be a difficult year financially,” he said.

Lynch later spoke of a “program health model” that looks at revenue and expenses over time for each school program. “We want to say, is the department making money or losing? And can we limit the loss? Some departments are just going to be more expensive.

“We can’t have all of them lose money, there has to be a silver lining somewhere,” he noted.

Lynch went on to point out that some majors such as English “provide service” to other degrees, because almost all students must take required classes in that field. “Conversely… music does not provide a lot of service to other majors.”

The School of Music offered a proposal on cutting its administrative costs at the December meeting of the University Senate, composed of the faculty.

Professor Sean Duggan, in presenting the resolution, alleged that a restructuring by previous Provost David Starrett resulted in department administrative costs rising by 50%.

The music school resolution offers three plans to cut costs back down to about what they were before. Whatever is chosen, “the structure would incorporate monthly music faculty meetings involving all music faculty to explore options for savings promoting innovative directions and solutions for the greater good of Fredonia.”

The University Senate passed a resolution in November urging the SUNY Fredonia administration to use a collaborative approach in addressing the budget and deficit crisis.