UoGuelph asks colleges to reduce budgets

The University of Guelph is asking its 7 academic colleges to make $24.2 million in cost reductions between 2014 and 2017 as part of efforts to make up for a $32.4-million budget shortfall. The Ontario Veterinary College has been asked to find $4.9 million in reductions by the end of 2017, while other colleges are being requested to make reductions in the $3 to $4 million range. University officials say the Program Prioritization Process (PPP), of which results were announced earlier this month, will play a fairly minor role in determining where cuts will be made, and say that the university’s long-term integrated plan will play a much larger role. "The PPP is part of the formula used, but you'll see in one of the charts that it's only about 18% of what informs the overall decision making," says UoGueph AVP Communications and Public Affairs Chuck Cunningham. Guelph Mercury