The Geisel School of Medicine will undergo an overhauldue to budgetary constraints, though the details of the plan have not been finalized pending faculty input, College President Phil Hanlon announced at a town hall meeting in Kellogg Auditorium today. He attributed the budgetary issues to a national trend of decreasing revenue streams for academic medicine and said the change will involve reallocating funds toward programs that promote “academic excellence” — though this may result in a “reduction in force” in other areas.
Geisel interim dean Duane Compton developed a three-year plan to stabilize the budget and deploy resources to Geisel’s strongest programs, such as the areas of health care delivery science, infectious disease and neuroscience, he said in an interview before the town hall. Hanlon also stressed the importance education as it relates to Geisel’s overall mission. In areas where the College needs to cut funding, Hanlon said in an interview he hopes the “reduction in force” will come from retirements and attrition, though he cannot guarantee there will be no layoffs.
In early September, the framework was presented to the Board of Trustees, who supported the plan. Compton said that administrators will hold town halls and discussion groups over the next month in order to “vet [the proposal] with the faculty” and “get stakeholder input.” The plan will be updated with faculty input and brought back to the Board in November.
Geisel’s budget for the 2013 fiscal year was $275 million, but dropped to $250 million for 2014, Compton said in the interview. Hanlon said that academic medical programs across the country have been struggling with finances, pointing to reductions in the National Institute of Health’s overall budget and constraint on the amounts paid by insurers for medical.
A full story will appear in tomorrow’s paper.
