Budgets for current construction projects, however, remain largely unaffected.
"What we've decided to do is really take a fairly aggressive approach to this and try to do this at one time, so that we accomplish the remedial actions that we need to accomplish right away," executive vice president for finance and administration Adam Keller said, adding that the expense reductions are currently slated to continue through July 2011.
Keller said each unit within the College has responded to the economic crisis by implementing more conservative spending practices, although he could not release the specific amount of the reductions because individual departments will not begin reporting that information for several weeks.
"Everywhere, people are looking harder at discretionary spending and saying, 'Do I really have to spend this?'" he said. "I think that's universal."
This practice will also affect undergraduate organizations and social programming. The Undergraduate Finance Committee, which manages and distributes funds collected through the student activities fee, will convene significantly earlier than in years past to focus on where it will allocate funding, according to the chair of the committee, Eric Ramsey. Ramsey is the director of Collis Center and Student Activities.
"The UFC will be very cognizant that the College budget and how student activities funds are spent are going to be leaner," Ramsey said. "UFC is committed to taking a close look at how students receive their student activities fee money. It will always be a tenet of the UFC that the fee is for students, by students."
The College Health Service has already reviewed several methods to reduce costs, according to Dartmouth Medical School professor John Turco, director of the Health Service.
Several positions in the service are currently unfilled due to the College freeze on external hiring, and the organization will also look for other areas to reduce expenses, he said.
"I think the important thing is nobody wants to make these cuts," he said. "But, like any group of services, there are some that are more core to the mission of the College, and we're trying to preserve those as best we can."
The hiring freeze will remain in place as long as the College deems necessary, Keller said in a previous interview with The Dartmouth, because the College must "pause to do some planning." He added that these are "steps that will get us to an end point."
"We want to do everything we can to avoid and reduce the layoffs," Keller said in the previous interview. "We have natural attrition that occurs throughout the year. We don't want to add to our employee base any more than we have to."
Budgets for other organizations on campus are more stable, at least in the short term.
The Tucker Foundation will not have to reduce its expenditures and will fully fund its current programs through July, Tucker Dean Richard Crocker said.
The Tucker Foundation had already saved enough funds in its yearly budget to cover the announced reductions, he said. Funds held in reserve for new programs, along with savings gained when one staff position was eliminated and others were left vacant during the hiring process are sufficient to meet the five percent reduction, he said.
"We're in a situation which may be different from some of the other departments at the College," Crocker said. "The College has not yet told us to what extent we will have to reduce our budget for next year. It is possible we will have to make some programmatic cuts, but I hope we will not."
Current construction projects, including the Class of 1978 Life Sciences Center, a remote storage facility for the Hood Museum and renovations on New Hampshire residence hall remain funded and on schedule, Stephen Campbell, director of the Office of Planning, Design and Construction, said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
Keller said some projects that are still in the planning stages -- such as the Visual Arts Center and the Class of 1953 Commons -- will remain under review to determine their feasibility, but others -- such as the reconstruction of the Memorial Field west stands -- have been delayed indefinitely. The renovation of 26 East Wheelock St. to provide a physical plant for Alpha Phi sorority will also be delayed, The Dartmouth reported on Wednesday.
"Funding for construction projects is usually different than funding for the operating budget," Keller said. "When we look at capital projects, we are willing to accept funds which come on a one-time basis. We haven't seen any pledges that people have made for capital gifts that they have reneged on."
New construction projects will remain under review for another 30 to 60 days to ensure that funding plans are both feasible and secure, he said.
"We still plan to borrow some money for the life sciences building," Keller said. "However, we are trying to delay that as much as we can right now, in the hope that the financial markets will come more back to normal, and we'll be able to borrow at slightly better rates than are available today in the tax-exempt market."
Despite the need for budget reductions, Dartmouth remains financially strong, Keller said, adding that the College has not made any changes that will affect central aspects of the Dartmouth community.
"I think it's important to think of this as a problem that's a function of the external financial environment," he said. "I suspect it's going to be with us for some time."
