Additional budget cuts may force Kansas University to consider limiting admissions, Chancellor Robert Hemenway said Friday.

“We have not done that – and we’ve not considered that – but if the cuts continue you might take a look at that,” he said. “That would be a last resort, but we’re getting to that point where you’re getting closer and closer to the last resort.”

This year, an enrollment increase helped ease an $18.8 million reduction in state funds, including a $9.4 million reduction announced this week by Gov. Bill Graves.

KU has 659 more students this fall than a year ago. The enrollment boost led to about $1.2 million in tuition money officials weren’t expecting, said Lindy Eakin, vice provost.

But Hemenway said many faculty positions were going unfilled this year, and that could limit the number of classes KU could offer as soon as next fall.

“If we were to have further cuts, it would have the potential of severely limiting our faculty size,” he said. “Our faculty is much smaller than most of our peers. We have to be concerned about not just maintaining the faculty size we have now, but find ways to increase the size.”

KU officials announced Friday that the Wheat State Whirlwind Tour, an annual journey across the state for some new faculty and staff members, would be cut because of the budget situation. The tour cost about $25,000 in state money per year.

But Eakin said most of the 3.9 percent cut announced last week by Graves would be covered by money already set aside by deans and department heads. Eakin said university leaders were told to expect a 3 percent to 5 percent cut in August, when Graves cut higher education by 1 percent.

¢ 6News video: KU won’t be cutting positions

“It was clear even when the governor did the August allotment, there was still a $100 million shortfall,” Eakin said. “We knew he was going to come back.”

KU now has laid off 44 workers at its Lawrence and medical center campuses and eliminated another 115 vacant positions.

Other savings at the Lawrence campus have been achieved by closing the public portion of the Museum of Anthropology, eliminating a division of the Kansas Geological Survey and an asbestos abatement unit, closing the office supply store and ending state funding to the Paleontological Institute.

Two medical center programs – a Pittsburg physical therapy program and neonatal intensive care master’s degree program – have been eliminated, and library hours have been cut by two hours each day.