The development of the new HERS-2 system—the computerized registrar system that is being put in place—will likely be delayed. The registrar’s office had requested four additional full-time employees to help with the system next year, but that has not been approved and the hiring of all four is unlikely, Herschbach said.

The planned $7.5 million renovation of Dunster and Mather dining halls will continue to be postponed until sufficient funds surface, she said. Quincy dining hall’s $3.5 million renovation should proceed as scheduled for the summer of 2004.

Planned renovations of the Hasty Pudding building and the Malkin Athletic Center will also be put on hold, Herschbach said.

At the GSE, the discovery of $2 million of previously unknown debt in its Programs in Professional Education upset a tightly-planned budget that had reduced this year’s anticipated deficit from $800,000 to just over $200,000. It now projects a deficit of $500,000 for this fiscal year, and a deficit of $150,000 for next year.

“Dealing with that has been a major blow for the school,” said acting GSE Administrative Dean Richard Pagett.

As a result, the GSE laid off 13 administrative staffers in the program.

Pagett said the GSE will also keep faculty positions vacant to cut costs.

“There’s going to have to be serious justification for filling positions as they empty,” he said.

And the KSG has reduced its real estate holdings in the Square to further its deficit reduction plan. The school has sold five parcels of land, retaining three others, according to KSG Executive Dean J. Bonnie Newman.

This comes one year after the school eliminated 52 positions and closed its Washington office in response to a $5.9 million deficit. This year’s deficit is projected to be $500,000—well below the original projection of approximately $3 million—and the school anticipates a balanced budget next year, Newman said.

“What life has taught us in the last couple of years is that the unexpected happens,” she said. "And we need to learn how to manage around those events.”

Harvard Law School (HLS) Dean Richard C. Clark sent an e-mail to students informing them that the school would not have to make cuts despite the tough economy.

He said the school would dip into “rainy day” funds to continue implementing smaller 1-L sections and improvements to the First-Year Lawyering Program.

“While [next year’s] budget will not contain the array of new initiatives and expanded programs that have been the headline events of recent years, we are able to fund current program well without the need for cutbacks,” he wrote.

HMS has only needed to “trim a little bit” to maintain a balanced budget during expansion, Walker said. But she said the school would be “careful” about staff vacancies in an attempt to lower expenses.