State funds ease SIU's cash crunch

CARBONDALE, Ill. (AP) -- Southern Illinois University says it now has enough funding to make it to at least next March.

The chancellor of the university's flagship Carbondale campus, Sam Goldman, says the school got $17 million in state funding Wednesday, enabling it to make payroll through March 1.

The state money, when combined with the school's tuition intake and other funding expected after the first of the year, will allow the university to begin its spring semester as scheduled.

Yet administrators worry of what may happen when that money will run out by March.

Southern is still owed more than $100 million by the cash-strapped state. SIU President Glenn Poshard has asked the system's faculty and staff to stop or slow most expenditures unrelated to salaries -- and only as authorized by the vice chancellors.

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Information from: Jennifer Fuller, WSIU-FM, http://www.wsiu.org