The Kennedy School of Government (KSG) will begin major cuts in programs and staffing over the next few weeks after learning that its budget deficit for the current fiscal year will be almost twice what it had anticipated.

In what KSG Executive Dean J. Bonnie Newman says will be a “painful” task, the school will have to choose which of its roughly 600 employees to release—only its 38 full professors will have complete job security.

At a staff meeting last Wednesday, KSG Dean Joseph S. Nye announced that the estimated deficit for fiscal year 2002—projected at just under $3 million at this time last year—is now $5.6 million.

Although the school already took steps to reduce its deficit—including eliminating five staff positions—Kennedy School officials have now begun to step up their efforts.

Without major cuts now, the problem will continue in years to come, officials say. Despite what Newman calls “numerous efforts to trim programs and projects,” the current deficit projection for 2003 is $2.5 million—a number that she says may increase just as this year’s estimates did.

Newman, Nye and other top officials are meeting this week with directors of the school’s centers and programs. Within the next two or three weeks, Kennedy School leaders will decide where to cut programs and staff.

“It’s clear now we won’t be able to balance the budget without personnel reductions,” Newman says. “Any organization periodically needs to take a look at what it’s doing, [but] we don’t want to take a machete approach.”

‘Painful’ Choices

Pressure to bring the KSG budget under control has come from the University’s highest ranks, according to one University official. The Corporation, Harvard’s highest governing body, has been concerned with the school’s budgetary problems. At a recent meeting, Nye presented Corporation members with a “tough plan” to eliminate the deficit.

“Now he has to carry through, they told him,” the official says.

With advice from faculty and staff, Nye will ultimately review each program individually to determine which budgets will remain intact, which will be tightened and which will be slashed altogether.

The school will continue to subsidize research where donations don’t cover the full cost—so long as officials believes the work is central to their mission, Newman says.

Newman says she will not know the extent of the layoffs until next month, but staff cuts will be inevitable.

“With the exception of senior faculty, we’ll be looking at everyone,” she says.

Although the school has not instituted a hiring freeze, it now requires that Newman and Academic Dean Frederick Schauer approve any new appointments.