Emporia State president tells Committee on Government Efficiency three‑year overhaul cut deficit, held tuition flat

Emporia State University President Ken Hush told the Committee on Government Efficiency that a three‑year internal review and a set of operational changes have reduced the university’s debt and produced savings while the school kept tuition and fees from rising.

Hush said the review — begun after leadership changes and completed through a campuswide analysis, program reviews and 0‑based budgeting — revealed what he described as a roughly $12 million deficit and “a lot of bleeding” across campus operations. He said the university has cut and reallocated resources, reduced total debt, passed savings on to students and avoided asking the state for new capital funding until the university “look[ed] at ourselves and clean[ed] up.”

The overhaul, Hush said, began with broad campus feedback and formation of 14 activity groups that produced profit‑and‑loss reviews of departments and programs. “Everything we do should be focused around that — students, students, students,” Hush said. He described a three‑year investment horizon for changes, not just one‑year budget trims.

Why it matters: Kansas’ public universities have seen enrollment declines and rising deferred maintenance, and the Kansas Board of Regents (KBOR) has urged institutions to right‑size operations. Hush told the committee that regional universities remain below past enrollment levels and that Emporia State’s actions were intended to protect student access and to represent taxpayers prudently.

Key outcomes and numbers Hush cited included: a discovered deficit of about $12 million; state general fund support of about $40 million at the time of the review and a total university budget near $120 million; a reduction in the university’s outstanding debt (he said debt has gone down about 25 percent); and a reported $220 million estimated local economic impact from Emporia State. Hush also told the committee the university returned unused bonding authority after fundraising and said that by doing so it avoided about $8 million in interest that would have been paid by the state agency if the bond had been issued.

Hush described several policy and operational steps taken during the effort: program review with an appeals process, 0‑based budgeting that reexamined every position, elimination of student application fees, limited student parking fees, targeted reinvestment in student‑facing programs, demolition or sale of underused buildings, and restructuring of the university foundation to increase donor support.

Hush said the university sought and used a small three‑person regent advisory group for day‑to‑day feedback but that the advisory group was later disbanded by the Board of Regents. He also said the university faced litigation related to some of the changes and that critics had warned the actions would threaten accreditation; Hush said Emporia State completed its accreditation review in December and received a positive initial statement from the accreditor about the direction of the university.

Committee questions and clarifications: Senator Hoelscher asked, “How much more cutting do you feel is needed, and what groups will that include?” Hush replied, “I think we’re basically there,” adding that he preferred to call many steps “strategic” rather than simply “cuts.” When asked whether further faculty reductions were expected, Hush said he did not know and that the university felt “comfortable where we’re at.”

Senator Schmidt asked whether talks with a nearby technical college were an acquisition. Hush said the discussions were framed around “synergy” and cooperation rather than acquisition and described ongoing, mediated conversations involving the technical college’s president, the local K‑12 superintendent and Emporia State’s leadership.

Hush said the university’s program review found programs with very low enrollment — including at least one program with a single enrolled student — and that some administrative cuts in prior years (including reductions in student‑employment and admissions staff) had unintentionally weakened recruitment capacity and enrollment capture.

No formal committee action was taken during the presentation. The committee chair closed the session and moved to other business.

The presentation provided the committee with a campus‑level case study of how a regional public university approached declining enrollment, deferred maintenance and budget shortfalls through program review, budgeting changes and targeted reinvestment.