Fox, how bad is the economic situation in Tennessee as compared to other low points in our history?
This is the worst fiscal crisis in the modern history of Tennessee. It’s the first time where we’ve had an actual decline in tax collections. We’ve had numerous recessions, but never one that was severe enough to cause us to have a decline in the amount of dollars collected. At this point we’re at -7 percent, so it’s not even just a little bit down. So that’s the best evidence of how serious this is. The unemployment rate has already exceeded what we experienced in the last recession, and we’re still early in this recession. So from an economic perspective, we’re in a very serious environment. How does this affect UT Knoxville and the UT system? The university is sensitive to tax revenue collections in Tennessee, but we’re also sensitive to national conditions that impact universities as compared with other state agencies. That’s because universities are seen as being able to replace some of that lost funding with tuition increases, while other agencies simply cannot replace revenue as
