The economic turmoil on Wall Street and on Broad street is taking a toll on Ohio State University's four-billion dollar budget.
Vice President of Business and Finance, William Shkurti, tells trustees OSU faces a handful of financial pinchpoints.
"The stock market's down, so that means alot of the long-term investments have had at least an unrealized loss up to now."
Market losses are north of 500 million dollars in the investmetn pool and October's results have yet to be calculated. Other revenue streams are being closely monitored.
"Whether the downturn in the economy results in things like the hospital not being able to collect from patients who lose their insurance but need medical care." Says Shkurti.
Shkurti is also looking to the statehouse at Broad and High.
"A big pinchpoint is the state budget. Whenever the national economy goes bad that ripples to the state economy and ripples to the state budget. And I know everybody's going to be watching Christmas sales to see how that turns out. So we're concerned about that as well."
So far Governor Strickland has shielded OSU and other state-assisted universities from deep budget cuts in return for the schools agreeing to freeze tuition. Shkurti says for the time being he is urging trustees to exercise budget caution. "My recommendation for today is that we wait and see a little bit. And then we'll come back with more specific recomendations in February when we have a better sense of where things are laying out. But we're also telling the deans and vice presidents and unit leaders that we're headed for an uncertain time." Says Shkurti.
So far, no staff or faculty cutbacks.
Tom Borgerding WOSU News