Many individuals who grow up in coastal South Carolina learn early in life how to predict shifts in the weather. It is very common to tune in to the smell of sulphur in the atmosphere, detect moisture in the wind, and observe dark clouds approaching from the distance. As the hub of the national hurricane corridor, sensory perception is critical for preparedness. Inasmuch as I bring my whole-self to my role as president of Kentucky State University, it is my assessment that our campus faces a gathering storm of new realities and fiscal stress in the near future. It is imperative that the campus respond to the current fiscal year pressures and anticipate a continued downpour of financial constraints. In the pages that follow, I detail the campus plan to cut expenses for the last two months of the fiscal year and to brace for a potentially steeper fiscal cliff next year.

It is imperative that the campus respond to the current fiscal year pressures and anticipate a continued downpour of financial constraints. In the pages that follow, I detail the campus plan to cut expenses for the last two months of the fiscal year and to brace for a potentially steeper fiscal cliff next year.

Kentucky State University cannot continue business as usual. We must realign our workforce and operations to best-endure the new uncertainties related to face-to-face instruction, residential student housing composition, implications from parental/guardian unemployment, declining state appropriations, and a predicted downturn in college-going nationwide. We cannot wait to see what happens, we must act now.

To this end, campus management has posed and responded to three questions for the short-term: (1) What are the historic institutional activities/operations prior to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that we no longer need to continue?; (2) What are the new institutional activities/operations required as a result of COVID-19 that are now the new normal?; and (3) What efficiencies can we capture as a result of our present situation that will position us for growth and long-term sustainability?

Kentucky State University is readying the FY2021 annual budget for review by the Board of Regents. It is imperative that cost-containment measures occur early rather than late. An immediate set of permanent reductions will increase our institutional agility as we weather the aftermath and/or continuing effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

These decisions are not pleasant, but necessary for the near term. As such, the campus needs stakeholders to support Kentucky State University's efforts to sustain our historic mission into the future by making prudent fiscal decisions in the present.

We will be lean for the ensuing years. But we will remain Thorobred Strong.

Kentucky State University