President Robert Shelton made $10 million in “”reallocations”” for the 2008 fiscal year budget, including a budget cut of more than $1 million to his own office, as part of his four-year budget renormalizing process.

To minimize budget cuts on various colleges or academia, Shelton also cut from his own office, the Office of the President, as well as from the Office of Business Affairs and the Office of Academic Affairs.

“”When I was provost at Chapel Hill and made budget cuts, I never cut the president’s budget,”” Shelton said. “”But I think it was very important to do so here.””

Although the process of cutting funds from Shelton’s own office may seem unorthodox, this type of move has been made in almost every budget since 2002 or 2003, said Dick Roberts, UA budget director.

“”University presidents consistently took larger cuts than academics has,”” Roberts said. “”The administration takes this approach to try to protect the core of the university to the greatest extent possible.””

Joel Valdez, senior vice president of business affairs, who felt a budget cut of $1 million to his office, said that the cut was for the greater good.

“”Everyone had to participate,”” Valdez said. “”I lost a million dollars, but that million dollars will be distributed amongst the colleges.””

Working closely with Provost George Davis and Valdez, Shelton evaluated each college throughout the university and made budget cuts from 1.5 to 3 percent, accordingly.

“”We were in the hole and there were a lot of reasons for that,”” Shelton said. “”One of the primary reasons is that the state is going through difficult budget years and we were using one-time money for further expenses.””

One-time money, as opposed to permanent funds, is only temporary.

For the 2009 fiscal budget, Shelton said he plans to cut an additional $5 million, which will set the UA on the path toward a more stable budget.

But while $10 million is a lot of money, it is actually 1.7 percent of the university’s overall budget of nearly $600 million, Roberts said.

“”It sounds like a lot of money, but in the large scale ($10 million) it’s a fairly minor amount and is a fine correction,”” Roberts added.

Now that the recommendations for the 2008 budget have been made by Shelton, the university has to wait for the state and federal Legislatures to negotiate and appropriate state funding, Roberts said.

“”Here we are in early April,”” Roberts said. “”If things go well in the Legislature we could be done by the middle of May or early June.””