THE PARTY LINE

The Subprime Deli

It's in that period just before the other shoe drops that a government-relations officer can be most effective

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By PETER ONEAR

My state is in deep financial trouble. That means, of course, that my state university is also in deep financial trouble.

It's a bit ironic given that this fall my university increased enrollment significantly, concluded a substantial capital campaign well over its goal, and has received more federal research money than during any previous 12-month period in the university's history.

As a government-relations officer, I know politics. I do not know a lot about economics or the intricacies of university finances. I do not understand what got this country into its current financial mess. When I first heard the term "subprime," I thought it was a new sandwich from Subway. I clearly do not fathom the mechanism whereby a family in California defaulting on its mortgage payment affects my Midwestern university's share of the state's instructional subsidy. I'm certain there's a connection, but I don't understand it.

Personally, I blame this whole mess on Thomas Friedman. He was the one who started this flat-world, global-economy metaphor that forced every American university to open a branch campus in China or else miss out on … something.

Anyway, I have noticed around the campus that people are starting to stare at me. I am "that government-relations guy," and, therefore, this economic mess is somehow all my fault, or the fault of government types like me who should have acted to prevent it, instead of the fault of Thomas Friedman. But why me? My mortgage is in great shape.

At this writing, our university's state subsidy has not yet been reduced one dime. That's because my state, like other states, still has options — albeit unpopular ones — such as increasing taxes and closing state parks. Many states also have something called a "rainy day fund." The idea is that a state stashes away money during "good" times in order to have extra cash during "bad" times. While that is a great idea in the abstract, it never quite works out in reality. Somehow the economy is never quite good enough to put much money into the fund, and then once any money is in it, it's almost impossible to pry it out.

But at this moment, my university doesn't need the governor to tap our state's rainy day fund. My university is rolling in money, although some of our money is held by investment firms and banks that no longer answer the phone. Nevertheless, students and their parents have dutifully paid fall tuition. The federal government has sent us student-loan payments. Fans have bought football tickets. Patients suffering from financial shock are filling our university hospital's beds. And the state has granted our fall subsidy payment. We have money being delivered in wheelbarrows.

However, as the semester drags on, those "revenue streams," as our vice president for finance likes to call them, will soon go as bone dry as a Texas river in late August. (I don't know if Texas rivers really do go bone dry, but I have read all of Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove novels and rivers always seem to dry up in the autumn.)

Another tortured metaphor for our situation involves shoes — as in, we're waiting for the other shoe to drop. That is an act my dog likes. I take one shoe off and drop it on the floor. He hears it clunk and hurries into the bedroom, sits on his haunches, and eagerly waits for me to take off my other shoe and drop it. Sometimes he makes a grab for the shoes to use as chew toys and sometimes he doesn't. I'm never sure what he will do.

In my work as a university government-relations officer, I also often wait for the other shoe to fall. For example, if the House passes a bill favorable or unfavorable to higher education, will the Senate pass it or let it die an unnatural death? If an earmark for the university makes it through Congress, will the president approve or reject it? If our city's mayor wants to repave the streets around the university, will the City Council appropriate the money for our streets or for some other streets across town?

It's in that period just before the other shoe drops that a government-relations officer can be most effective. Certainly, we are usually the people who first carry the message to the mayor that the streets need repairing or submit an earmark request to a favorite member of Congress. But what happens afterward is where I really earn my salary — making sure that the political outcome is what our university wants.

So, in that regard, I guess it is time for those of us in government relations to roll up our sleeves and get to work. Everyone else at the university is doing what he or she is supposed to be doing. Teaching classes. Writing papers and taking tests. Winning football games. Recruiting next year's freshman class. Making scientific breakthroughs.

Meanwhile, I'm driving to the state capital hoping I get there before that other shoe drops. In this case, the other shoe would be an adjustment to the state budget. It could be something as devastatingly simple as the governor announcing an across-the-board cut, or as politically complicated as the legislature deciding to introduce a "budget corrections bill." Perhaps research grants or scholarship money will be cut or eliminated. That would affect private as well as public institutions in my state.

No one at this moment knows exactly what will happen. And the fact that we're in good company isn't much solace.

Peter Onear is the pseudonym of a vice president for government relations at a university in the Midwest. For an archive of his previous columns, see http://chronicle.com/jobs/news/archives/columns/the_party_line.