THE BUDGET UNDER FIRE

In its clear and forceful discussion of "The Proposed Ten Percent Budget Cut," the latest Bulletin of the Harvard Teachers' Union raises various objections to the University's emergency financial policy. Some of the objections seem valid on their face; all are worthy of consideration. But the one really vital point made in the Union's leaflet is that the problem of reduced University income is one which will in the future concern every member of the Faculty as well as of the student body, and so should "be discussed freely and openly, in a spirit of democratic cooperation befitting one of the nation's leading educational institutions." In other words, the crisis is not simply a signal for fiscal juggling by the Administration, but for deliberation and debate among all the members of the University who will be so materially affected by whatever policy is adopted.

Chief among the criticisms made by the Bulletin are that a ten percent budget cut without reduction of existing salaries would: (a) affect departments unequally and arbitrarily; (b) seriously injure the tutorial system; and (c) result in the firing (or rather not rehiring) of a large number of valuable teaching fellows--whereas this might be avoided by reducing Faculty salaries on a progressive income tax scheme.

The first criticism has added weight when specific departments are considered. For example, in one department eighty-three percent of the expenses would be untouchable Faculty salaries, so that the cut would have to come entirely from the seventeen percent reserved for teaching fellows, annual instructors, and administrative expenses. In this case the number of non-permanent teachers dropped would almost certainly be disproportionate to the number of students drafted, and instruction would consequently be impaired. The criticism dealing with tutorial follows from this, as non-Faculty men do the bulk of the tutorial work. The third criticism also is bound up in the plan of having each department take care of its own ten percent cut, and would be valid only in the departments which happened to be affected. But a graduated salary slice, the Union feels, would actually be a better and more reasonable safeguard of Harvard's long-range aims than preservation of the status quo.

The University's budget at best can only be a tentative one, and the air will be considerably cleared by next fall. Meanwhile, the Teachers Union is offering an alternative to the present plan, admitting, however, that some adjustment in between the two extremes may be the feasible and proper solution. It is important that the Administration recognize the worth of the Union's suggestions and throw open the doors for Faculty debate on them.