Cactus Showdown at ACES

While it was intended to be a discussion about the entire university, it now seems that UT President Bill Powers' budget town hall meeting scheduled for this afternoon will have to tackle the closure of the Cactus Cafe and the ending of the Informal Classes program.

Union Executive Director Andy Smith has now clarified that the two programs are being cut to free up enough funding to pay for the two percent merit pay raise pool mandated by the university last year. In total, cutting the two programs will produce cash to cover the $122,000 needed over the biennium. That would equate to a $4.39 per person per year donation from the 13,873 (and rising) folks that have joined the Save the Cactus Cafe Facebook page as fans. If only a fraction of those people turn up, this could be the longest two hours of Powers' life (and this man has given testimony to Senate committees).

However, it was never going to be a walk in the park. In between cuts in the state contribution to the budget, overstretched infrastructure, increased mandates and tuition rates at record highs, the UT budget was already controversial enough (see our earlier coverage on the big picture).

Of course, the big question is how much of that $122,000 will be eaten away system-wide through trying to restore the damage to UT's public profile and replacing alumni donations lost as a result of this decision.

The meeting runs today, Feb. 2, 4-6pm, at the Avaya Auditorium in the Applied Computational Engineering and Sciences (A.C.E.S.) building, 201 E. 24th.