The University of Missouri System administration will reveal Thursday how it intends to cut costs to cover a $3.8 million decrease in state support when the Board of Curators considers the budget for the coming fiscal year.

Overall, the budget anticipates $3.07 billion in revenue, down from $3.14 billion in the budget approved by the curators in June 2015, and $2.98 billion in spending, up $29.1 million. The increased spending includes a $43.7 million increase for hospital operations.

On the Columbia campus, where administrators are anticipating enrollment to decline by at least 2,600 students, the budget includes a $34 million decline in tuition revenue, offset in part by a $5.6 million reduction in spending on scholarships from restricted fund sources.

The Columbia campus has cut more than 150 positions, including layoffs of 38 employees, and spending on employee salaries is budgeted to decline from $379.4 million to $366.2 million in the year that begins July 1.

The budget before the curators is the reflection of a bad year for the university. Columbia campus demonstrations over racial issues in November played out on a national stage and helped push out President Tim Wolfe. The strife also highlighted other issues that led to the resignation of Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin. Legislators reacted harshly to the participation of the Tigers football team in the protests and put heavy pressure on the university to fire assistant professor Melissa Click for interfering with news coverage of the protests.

At one point during the legislative session, the university was frozen out of a proposed increase in spending for colleges and universities and cuts were made to the system administration and the Columbia campus. The final state budget included a boost for the university and a cut to the system administration of $3.8 million.

Interim President Mike Middleton has said he did not intend to cover the shortfall by taking money from the four campuses, but the documents provided to the curators do not give details about how that will be accomplished. UM spokesman John Fougere said system Chief Financial Officer Brian Burnett would provide that information to the board when it meets Thursday and Friday.

The budget anticipates spending $2 million less in the coming fiscal year on salaries and benefits for the system.

Burnett was not available for an interview Wednesday morning, Fougere said.

The board also will consider its budget request to the state for the year beginning July 1, 2017. The request, as proposed by the administration, makes restoring the $3.8 million a top priority.

�While the system worked diligently to find cuts without increasing the costs or pushing additional workload to the campuses, maintaining current service levels without a degradation of quality or timeliness will not be sustainable,� the documents said. �The reduced funding also limits the flexibility of the system to implement actions to increase efficiencies and effectiveness for the benefit of the campuses and the ability to respond to new opportunities.�

MU Vice Chancellor for Finance Rhonda Gibler on Monday said she expects the cuts at the UM System to slow some services the campus expects, such as approval of contracts in the general counsel�s office or approval of purchases.

�For them to take a $3.8 million cut and for it not to affect us at all, is hard for me to imagine,� Gibler said.