WCU navigates budget uncertainty, prepares for what’s ahead
WCU Chancellor Kelli Brown talks fiscal responsibility.
From YouTube
Six months after the North Carolina General Assembly’s deadline to produce an annual budget, Western Carolina University in Cullowhee is left weathering the effects of this stalemate — and preparing for an uncertain future.
At the Dec. 11 academic and student affairs subcommittee meeting, Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Richard Starnes informed fellow members of the board that “academic affairs leadership has been working through a proactive budget planning exercise to help us prepare for possible financial scenarios.”
He added that “In the absence of a state budget, no official reductions have been mandated.”
In such a scenario, Starnes explained, North Carolina’s automatic continuing resolution statute “provides that state agencies are funded” at the base amount budgeted for the previous fiscal year.
But it also means that in higher education, empty positions cannot be filled, salaries cannot be increased, grants are limited and situational needs are unmet. The state endured a similar stalemate most recently in 2019, but legislators passed a mini budget in the interim to fill in the inevitable yearly gaps.
“In this case, we've not seen a lot of [interim appropriations],” Starnes said.
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And while state lawmakers returned to sessions on Dec. 15, the agenda did not reference a new budget. That’s bad news, though an indirect consequence of something good — the Cullowhee university saw a 1.36% increase in overall enrollment this fall, a measure that warrants proportionally increased funding. Instead, it’s having to subsist at the base level of the previous year.
“The reality is that without the budget, we can't fund the enrollment growth. And consequently, enrollment growth is the system and system office and the Board of Governors’ number one priority for the short session 2026, short session of the General Assembly,” said Board of Governors member Kathryn Greeley during WCU's general meeting on Dec. 12.
“[On] campuses like this one, it’s hard, as the chancellor indicated, to maintain the quality and affordability without the enrollment growth money,” she added.
Despite these unprecedented circumstances, fiscally speaking, WCU has maintained a calculated and risk-averse internal track record.
At a prior finance, administration and audit subcommittee meeting, it was revealed that auditors completed 82% of plan engagements, in comparison to the 66% average of the entire UNC system, and 18 engagements among two staff members, in comparison to a 3.78 system-wide average per individual. Auditors did not find any compliance issues.
In an interview with The Smoky Mountain News, Chancellor Kelli Brown echoed WCU’s commitment to intentional, minimal spending.
Since long before her time, Brown said, the university has been “very good about being very fiscally responsible and understanding the importance of that, that we are a state public institution … And so, I think going into this [state] budget process, and what we're going into now, we've been very conservative.”
Starnes said that when legislators reconvene for the 2026 short session on April 21, there’s a chance they pass a retroactive budget by July 1, 2025. That possibility, he said, “is one of the reasons why we are proactive in this budget planning exercise.”
It would also require adjustments to reflect new allocations and spending mandated throughout the 2025 fiscal year.
Unfortunately, official state revenue projections predict at least a $100 million deficit starting in 2026, which will likely have downstream effects on North Carolina’s higher education budget.
“Both the House and the Senate are projecting budget cuts to the UNC system, and we want to be prepared for that,” Brown told SMN.
The chancellor’s top priority is absorbing a reduction in funding without affecting faculty, staff or students.
“One of my goals has always been, ‘How can we make sure we can go forward without impacting people?’” she said.
In addition to budget restrictions, university officials have a solid idea of what 2026 will bring based on the content of long session deliberations. The Senate’s budget proposal earlier this year, for example, required the UNC Board of Governors to increase annual tuition to $3000 for WCU attendees hailing from outside of North Carolina.
As a part of the N.C. Promise Fund — alongside UNC-Pembroke, Fayetteville State and Elizabeth City State — the university has historically set a tuition rate of $500 for in-state and $2,500 for out-of-state students.
This program has been a success, and Greeley spoke to the impact it’s had on economic outcomes among community members.
“Not only has it attracted first generation students and low-income students, but it has allowed middle income students at Western Carolina to graduate without crippling debt,” she said, adding that 50% of students are debt-free upon graduation.
Greeley then announced to fellow trustees that the UNC Board of Governors had raised out-of-state tuition to $3,500. As it turns out, a price increase can still occur pending passage of the state budget — not to mention the annual upward trend of student fees adjusted for inflation.
But Brown said the university is preparing for a variety of possible scenarios and that WCU has many promising years ahead, even amid these precarious circumstances.
“We're not sitting back and waiting for things to happen,” she said. “We're being very proactive. So, I think the future looks bright for 2026.”
