The UW’s recent hiring freeze and $4 million budget reduction may hit departmental staffing the hardest.

Gov. Chris Gregoire ordered the freeze in August and, two weeks ago, asked for a further 1 percent reduction in spending for agencies receiving state money. The cuts come after the state revised its estimated revenues from last month to June 2011 by $529 million.

Last Tuesday, UW President Mark Emmert sent an e-mail explaining that the UW will reduce its 2009 fiscal year state-funds budget by $4 million and an additional $6 million through the hiring freeze.

Norm Arkans, associate vice president of media relations and communications at UW, said the UW uses state funds to hire staff and buy supplies for departments.

“It’s all very people-intensive,” he said. “The money we get from the state is mostly money we use to support the core educational program.”

One UW employee explained she saw the same types of budget cuts at the UW in the 1980s.

“It just seems that they do this all the time,” said another employee who who wished to remain anonymous. She has been with the UW since the 1980s.

Her department has not been able to replace key employee who recently left, and she said some of her coworkers have been working 50 hours a week to make up for it.

“People in the higher levels are already stretched,” she said. “How can they say that just not hiring someone [will work]?”

According to a Washington State Office of Financial Management’s (OFM) higher education per-student funding comparisons report, the UW spends $19,744 per student, which is 25 percent lower than the state’s goal for the school. A recent state law also allows the UW to raise tuition up to 7 percent per year.

UW junior Rachel Iverson said it is unfortunate that education suffers when the state has a budget shortfall.

“It seems that when they raise tuition by 7 percent, they should be able to make up budget shortfalls,” she said. “It seems like there should be some relief for students.”

However, the state’s budget cut request affects all universities receiving public funds in Washington State, said Glenn Kuper, communications director for OFM.

For the 2007-2009 budget, the state gave $467 million to Washington State University, $135 million to Western Washington University, and $96 million to Central Washington University, Kuper said.

Gov. Gregoire will publish the 2009-2011 budget proposal in mid-December and the legislature is expected to finish work on it in spring 2009, Kuper said.

“We don’t know what our budget is going to be yet,” Arkans said. “But it looks like it’s going to be a very tight budget biennium.”

Reach reporter Roselle Kingsbury at news@dailyuw.com.