Umaine System Estimates Short-term Loss From Pandemic At $20 Million

Click here for the latest coronavirus news, which the BDN has made free for the public. You can support this mission by purchasing a digital subscription. Maine’s public university system is estimating a $20 million short-term loss — or 3.6 percent of its budget for the 2019-20 academic year — after all seven universities transitioned to remote learning and asked most students to leave campus to halt the spread of the coronavirus. The estimate offers one of the first glimpses of the financial loss a large government entity will experience as a result of the coronavirus pandemic that has forced businesses to shut down and governments to scale back services. [Our COVID-19 tracker contains the most recent information on Maine cases by county] University of Maine System Chancellor Dannel Malloy revealed the estimate in a letter to Maine’s congressional delegation urging Congress to keep the public universities’ fiscal losses in mind while considering a federal stimulus package for organizations and businesses hurt by the COVID-19 pandemic. “We estimate our short-term revenue losses to be in excess of $20 million and the long-term ramifications are much greater but impossible to quantify at this time,” Malloy wrote. “Unfortunately, the steps we are taking to minimize the impact of these necessary measures on our students — 42 percent of whom are the first in their families to attend college — is [sic] having a devastating financial impact on our public universities and threatening their ability to operate into the future,” the chancellor wrote. Maine state government is also bracing for a major hit to revenues as a result of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, but officials haven’t yet quantified short-term losses. All seven of Maine’s public universities transitioned to remote learning on Wednesday, students’ first day back from an extended spring break, after announcing the decision to close dorms on March 11.