THE University of New England has been short-changed by more than $3 million by the federal government, according to the National Tertiary Education Union.
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Local union branch president and UNE academic Margaret Sims worries the $3.34 million hole left in the institution’s budget may impact staff.
“This is money that was allocated in the 2015 budget and then was withheld. The majority of university budgets are spent on their staff. When you get a drop in your expected funding, the majority of the impact of that is going to be on staff,” Professor Sims said.
The figure is part of a $217 million amount owed to universities throughout the country, the union says.
Union national president Jeannie Rea said the funds, in the form of efficiency dividend cuts from Australian universities in 2015, were now being illegally withheld, following Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull’s decision to prorogue the Parliament.
“Even though the government has acknowledged that our universities are under-resourced, it has used the Higher Education Support Amendment (Savings and Other Measures) Bill 2013 as the justification to withhold this much-needed funding,” Ms Rea said.
“These monies could have been used to employ an additional 1500 staff, to improve the quality of teaching and research, and reduce reliance on insecure forms of employment.”
Professor Sims says now is the time to claw the money back.
She expects the university’s leadership team to band with other institutions throughout the country to call for the funding to be doled out.
“They need to pounce,” Professor Sims said.
“It would be in their best interests to act, certainly. I would assume the sooner they act, the better.”
When asked if the $3.43 million was impacting the budget for the current year, a UNE spokeswoman said it was “aware of the efficiency dividend in the higher education budget and takes into consideration both current and proposed funding model changes from the federal government as relevant information is made available”.
In light of election speculation, Professor Sims worries the $3.34 million owed to UNE may disappear.
“With the double dissolution ... it looks like that money will be completely lost and forgotten,” she said.
