An operating budget for Western Kentucky University totaling roughly $402 million is moving forward after approval from the Board of Regents’ Finance and Budget Committee on Monday. 

The budget follows recent financial challenges for the university, including cuts in state funding and news that the university will have to cut programming and raise tuition to present a balanced budget. 

The 2016-17 operating budget totals $402,252,000. As much as 50.9 percent of the budget is made up of revenue from tuition and fees at $204,793,000. State appropriation makes up 17.9 percent at roughly $72 million. The rest of the budget is made up of revenue from restricted money, such as grants, contracts and financial aid, along with self-generated funds. 

The budget can’t be officially approved until the full Board of Regents meets Friday. Also up for approval is the university’s new tuition and fees schedule, which carries a 4.5 percent increase in undergraduate tuition and mandatory fees of $215 per semester. That will bring tuition to $4,956 per semester. 

A $6,039,200 budget shortfall means that cuts will also have to come from within the university. The largest cut totals $2,313,800. It shifts money from the Transitional Retirement Program, faculty computer replacement and Center for Research and Development maintenance budget, among other sources. 

It’s followed by $2,142,000 coming from eliminating unfilled faculty positions, shifting building services and groundskeeping employees to a facilities management company and other cost saving measures. 

The university continues to face costs, one of the largest being an increase in the Kentucky Employee Retirement System employer contribution rate from 39 percent of salary to 49 percent of salary. 

Regent John Ridley was among the committee’s members, who unanimously voted to approve the budget following lengthy discussion.

While Ridley understands the need for WKU to be fiscally responsible, he was also frustrated with a 4.5 percent reduction in state funding that the university must contend with. That amounts to $3,359,200 less budgeted for fiscal year 2017, according to budget documents provided at the meeting. 

Ridley called the cut “a very difficult thing” for the university to face. For Ridley, the state funding cuts to WKU mean less opportunities for Kentuckians. 

“You have to invest in the future by education,” he told the Daily News after the meeting. “We’re not going to cut ourself to prosperity.” 

The Gatton Academy will also be included in the cuts. Over the next two years, the academy will have to admit about 10 fewer Kentucky high school students, with about five fewer students for both years. 

For Ridley, that means “less of the those bright, brilliant students are not going to get that opportunity.”

In other business, the committee approved for the sale of roughly $9.5 million in bonds for a new parking structure slated to begin construction in the fall within a campus parking lot adjoining Creason Street. 

— Follow reporter Aaron Mudd on Twitter @aaron_muddbgdn or visit bgdailynews.com.