Despite efforts already made to trim a multi-million dollar deficit, the University of Windsor will start the next academic year in the red.
The school's Board of Governors signed off on the operating budget for the 2025-2026 academic year at its meeting on Tuesday afternoon. U of W Vice-President of Finance and Operations Gillian Heisz shared details during a media conference on Wednesday morning.
The deficit will be around $9.4-million, but a one-time payment from the Ontario Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence, and Securities (MCURES) whittled that down to about $4.4-million, or 1.5 per cent of the operating budget.
Heisz said the debt picture at the start of the current year was much more bleak.
"We started with about a $2.8-million deficit at the beginning of the year, then our tuition came in $32-million lower than we were expecting," said Heisz. "So that took us into about a $35-million deficit."
Required costs for employment contracts and other expenses pushed that debt up further, to about $42-million, so Heisz said the school had to make some painful choices.
"We eliminated vacant positions, we made some difficult decisions impacting staff, we obviously have a hiring freeze for a number of months now and had to do some layoffs, unfortunately," said Heisz. "We've cut some of our part-time teachers, or sessional instructors, where we could."
Heisz added that the federal limits on international students also had an impact.
The budget is tailored to a potential total enrollment for Fall Term 2025 of 14,868, which includes a projected 1.6 per cent increase in undergraduate enrollment.
Heisz said, though, that capital projects taking place around campus should proceed as before, scholarships were left alone, and students should not see much change in campus services.
"All of those student services that are critical to helping our students right now in terms of mental health, counselling, wellness, all of those services were also untouched by this budget," said Heisz.
The complete 2025-26 operating budget can be found on U of W's official website.