DAN LEBLANC and SAVHANNA WILSON

Much of the commotion and discontent surrounding the University of Saskatchewan’s projected deficit of $44.5 million by 2016 is centred on the salaries of top university administrators.

The $400,000 annual salary of the current president, Ilene Busch-Vishniac, and the salaries of the provost, deans and vice-deans are significantly higher than the average Saskatchewan resident’s $34,500 income. Many have called for the administration to take symbolic pay cuts to pacify outrage and demonstrate administrative commitment to the institution.

But calling for pay cuts to top U of S administration members diverts attention from the real root of the university’s financial woes: the tight-fisted Saskatchewan Party government’s decision to withhold funds.

While our attention is on internal disparities at the university, we’ve forgotten that the Sask. Party cut the funding allocation from an expected 5.8 per cent increase for the 2012-2013 academic year to a meagre two per cent increase last March, and the university has been told to expect similar levels of funding increases in the coming years.

Public outrage at the loss of invaluable administrative support staff is justifiable, as is the anger over the non-transparent processes by which these decisions were made.

However, it distracts from the real root of the “financial crisis” that led to these decisions, which is the provincial government’s refusal to properly fund the university.

Decreased government funding is the main reason the university is facing this financial problem. The decision to withhold funding from the main research institution — and a mainstay of economic growth — in the province has a far greater impact on the future of the U of S than any one division’s expenditures.

The “elites” we ought to criticize are not the people working on campus, even those bringing in higher-than-average salaries. They are the corporations — particularly those related to resource extraction and sale — who have enjoyed unacceptably low tax rates while selling what belongs to all Saskatchewan residents.

These low grant increases allocated to the U of S in this, a time of economic boom for our province, is unprecedented. We should be directing some of the financial benefits of our resource-rich economy toward decreasing the debt burden of students. Instead, it is misdirected away from institutions of higher education.

The problem with the U of S budget lies in the government’s apparent unwillingness to increase our funding. Pressure must be put on the province to ensure the current economic boom benefits all residents, students included.

If there is a choice to be made between imposing hardships on our academic institutions — and by extension on those receiving an education within it — and on corporations, then the government ought to place those burdens on the corporations, whom they have no mandate to represent. In a time of economic success, how can the U of S justify accepting these funding cuts and undertaking austerity measures to keep its budget under control?

It cannot.

It is time for the university’s administrators to stand up to the provincial government and insist that our collective academic future be a priority.

The value of our academic future is higher than the price of potash.

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Photo: 401(k) 2012/Flickr