Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Peter French presented the tentative University budget for fiscal year 2010 at last Thursday's faculty meeting, which included components such as a tuition growth rate, undergraduate enrollment figures and several endowment issues.At the faculty meeting, Reinharz said, "I think it's fair to say there's no getting around layoffs. There will be layoffs. . We are trying as best we can to not do things that are irreversible or create permanent damage."

In an e-mail to the Justice, French clarified: "President Reinharz was referring to actions that may be required for FY2010 or FY2009 if conditions worsen. [Reinharz] has asked that proposals for FY2010 reductions be submitted to him by December 15. After that date, there will be budget discussions leading to submittal of the FY2010 budget at the March 2009 Board of Trustees meeting. Until the budget is approved by the Trustees, we will not know the dimensions of the reductions," he wrote.

At the faculty meeting, Reinharz said that the University eliminated four positions and didn't fill 11 funded positions. French wrote in an e-mail to the Justice that it is "University policy not to release information about specific personnel transactions."

Another reduction Reinharz discussed at the meeting involved the Aramark contract. French wrote, "The Aramark contract will be a component of the overall University reduction. The University is discussing with Aramark how the reductions will be implemented." According to his e-mail, French, along with Senior Vice President for Students and Enrollment Jean Eddy and Student Union President Jason Gray '10, is organizing a student advisory group, which will "be involved in reviewing [budget] gap-closing plans that might affect students," such as the contract with Aramark.

Director of Dining Services Mike Newmark did not respond to an e-mail from the Justice about this matter.

Reinharz said at the meeting, "We cannot present a deficit budget to the board. We don't know what FY11 or 12 are going to bring."

French clarified in an e-mail, "The presentation of a deficit budget means there are not enough funds to pay all the bills and the University's credit and ability to borrow money would be compromised.

"Further, the University's ability to compete for gift and research funding from donors and sponsored funding agencies might be at risk," French wrote. "This would, in time, affect the quality of the University. Brandeis, like most colleges and universities, is projecting a drop in endowment and gift revenues because of the financial crisis. To deal with this challenge, either expenditures must be cut or revenues must be increased."

At the faculty meeting, French went through each of the items that was discussed with the Board of Trustees, the first of which was the tuition, room and board growth rate.

In an e-mail to the Justice, French wrote, "we are considering 4 percent as a possible [tuition] increase for FY2010. We expect this increase to be less than the actual cost increases that the University will incur."

He also wrote, "For the past five years, the Brandeis increase has averaged 4.5 percent, which was below the national average increase of 6 percent for private colleges and universities. The FY2009 increase for Brandeis was 4.5 percent and the national average increase for private institutions was 5.9 percent."

The second item on the budget list was the projected undergraduate enrollment for fiscal 2010, which is projected to be 3,283 students. Reinharz explained to the faculty that this is the worst possible projection because "We are already beyond housing capacity. This year we had the largest number of triples in University history." He also said, "Financial aid is a very complicated issue. Sixty-five percent of students have financial aid, and the average financial aid package is about $25,000. . This is both an infrastructure and a quality strain."

French explained at the meeting that the projected undergraduate tuition discount is 35 percent, which is the same as this year's budget. He said, "There's going to be enormous pressure to keep that tuition discount number at that level. . To put that in perspective, a 1 percent change in financial aid for undergraduates is a little over $1 million," he said.

Other budget projections included endowment cash gifts budget relief, which is targeted at $13 million, endowment distribution for operations, which is the percentage the University takes out of the endowment to apply to campus operations and is targeted at $40.4 million, and salary pool base, which is projected to increase by 1 percent. French also said that the University expects the total endowment return to be zero for FY2010.