Mayor: Closing-campus talk 'gamesmanship'

As if Mesa didn't have enough budget problems of its own. On top of $62 million in cuts planned up to June 2010, Arizona State University president Michael Crow recently warned that the severe budget cuts proposed could force the university to close the Polytechnic campus in east Mesa.

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But Mesa Mayor Scott Smith, who spoke Monday with Crow to discuss the future of the institute, said he was reassured that university officials would "do what they could to maintain Polytech as a viable institution."

There's no doubt that the university will have to take some hard decisions and make cuts, given the spiraling state budget, Smith said, but he believes the recent talk about budget cuts also has an element of "gamesmanship."

"There's some give-and-take and some gamesmanship I think you can see going on between the legislators. This is the political nature of things," Smith said at a media briefing Tuesday.

Earlier this month in the state Legislature, a proposed list of budget cuts coming from Republican leaders included possibly slashing $150million from ASU's budget as part of plans to deal with an estimated $3billion shortfall this fiscal year and next.

Crow has come up with a list of possible budget cuts for the university, which included possibly closing a campus or two.

But Smith said what's happening in the legislature, especially with education cuts, is that worst-case scenarios are being thrown out from all sides.

"I'm hoping when things pull together, that Polytechnic will continue to be there and be established to be able to go in the future," Smith said. "I'm confident we'll be able to work something out."

Smith emphasized the significance of the role the Polytech campus plays in the ultimate development of the entire East Valley, not only the area around Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport.

"Having a vibrant university presence at Gateway is essential if Gateway is to reach its full potential, so we're obviously very concerned about that," Smith said.

The campus' closing wouldn't bode well for Mesa, whose leaders frequently refer to the campus as a significant asset in its future planning.

Education spending at the state level is going to hurt the school system, too. But Smith said education is essential for the future of the state. So the challenge, he said, is that while there are fewer dollars to spend, there is a need still out there to maintain basic services and to "not give up our future, so to speak."

On the other hand, he said, the educational community and the public needs to recognize that this is a real problem.

"We cannot cut checks that will not clear," Smith said. "So there has to be sacrifice."

Overall, when it came to state budget cuts, Smith said: "I'm hoping that we don't get ideology too much into the budget issue. And I know that the temptation is great to all of the sudden use this as an opportunity to slash perhaps programs or initiatives that a specific legislator or legislators may not be happy with.

"I'm hoping that we're looking at as rational and as reasonable of an across-the-board affect that we can achieve," he said.