Julie Ball

The Citizen-Times

SWANNANOA - To close a budget deficit, Warren Wilson College announced Tuesday that it is cutting positions and laying off seven full-time employees.

The college is cutting a total of 20 full-time jobs, but 13 of those will be eliminated through attrition. The college also plans to cut eight to 10 part-time positions, according to Warren Wilson President Steven L. Solnick.

In addition, Warren Wilson is cutting the number of hours for between seven and 10 positions, according to college officials.

Solnick made the announcement in a letter to the campus community on Tuesday.

“They are painful cuts. They affect individuals we care about,” Solnick said in an interview. “But it is the right thing and the necessary thing to do for the college.”

The positions include both faculty and staff jobs. Employees will be given the option of continuing to work through June. Officials have not said which jobs were cut.

In 2015-16, Warren Wilson had a “budgeted deficit” of nearly $3 million. That includes deferred maintenance on college facilities.

Last year, all but the lowest paid employees took a pay cut based on salary. The largest salary cuts went to the highest paid employees, according to college officials.

Salaries remain frozen, but no additional pay cuts are planned in the upcoming fiscal year, Solnick said.

The college’s financial issues are similar to struggles at other small, private colleges, Solnick said. Enrollment has declined and expenses have increased.

At Warren Wilson, enrollment has decreased by about 10 percent over the last 10 years, college officials have said.

“We’re a tuition-driven institution. Most of our operating budget comes from tuition revenues,” Solnick said.

Private colleges face “stiff competition” from public universities and well as other private schools.

“As the applicant pool shrinks, colleges put more and more financial aid on the table which means the revenue we get from each student is down,” Solnick said.

But “There are many colleges that have much more daunting problems than we do, operating with no endowment or an endowment that they have drained over several years in order to disguise deficits,” Solnick said.

Warren Wilson has a “healthy endowment” of $52 million and a moderate amount of debt, according to Solnick.

In the letter to the campus community, he wrote, “As the college moves into the next fiscal year with a balanced budget, its economic fundamentals are strong.”

Last fall, the college announced increases in tuition and room and board rates for the upcoming school year.

In the letter to campus, Solnick said trustees in April approved a provisional budget “that achieves the goal of balancing revenues and expenses.”

“Since then, the administration has worked to finalize the operational details of this budget,” he wrote.

Cuts were made to the operating budget and fundraising targets were increased, according to the letter.

However, “These cuts and projected revenue increases alone were insufficient to balance the budget since almost 60 percent of our operating budget goes to salaries and benefits,” according to the letter.

College officials eliminated the positions “after a long and painful process of review that involved the entire cabinet and was shared with the board and with other stakeholder groups,” according to the letter.

“While this is a traumatic event for those most directly affected, we know this decision will also be hard for their colleagues and for the students and alumni with whom they are close. We are grateful to these individuals for their many contributions to the continuing legacy of this exceptional institution,” Solnick wrote.

The news comes as Solnick prepares to leave to take a job as head of a private day school in New York City. The college’s new president, Lynn M. Morton, is slated to take over the job July 1. Solnick said college officials wanted to make these cuts now rather than leave them for Morton.

He wrote to the campus community, “On a personal note, I realize that this announcement probably represents my last significant act as president of this great college. I wish that final act could have been a joyous one. I take some comfort, however, in knowing that these painful steps will leave the college poised to thrive under new leadership.”



