Amidst growing unrest about an unclear economic future, Carleton has started a new task force on financial resources seeking student and faculty feedback for innovative ways to cut costs and boost revenues.

While maintaining the school in the short run will be on firm financial footing, the administration noted a list of thorny economic issues on the horizon that require urgent and unconventional thinking.

However,  it said there will be no budgetary cuts during the new school year

“Our pension fund has seen depreciation in its value and will likely require us to make annual extraordinary payments of approximately $10 million beginning next year,” Carleton said in a statement released on the task force’s website. “We do not yet know what our government grant will look like as we move into 2010. Half of Carleton’s operating revenue comes from our provincial grant and we must be prepared for the possibility that the province will not be able to increase it next year.”

The task force launched a public forum through its website in order to solicit ideas from the school community.

Since its late-August inception, the online forum has attracted some community attention. Undergraduate student task force member Nicholas Osborne commented that the forum has “13 registered contributors and two discussion topics each with 100 views.”

“This is a great sign of things to come and affirms the value of the forum as a component of the Task Force on Financial Resources. I think that the most important thing in all of this is that Carleton is trying something new with the forum,” Osborne said in regards to the task force’s public outreach efforts.

Osborne, one of two students on the task force, said the heftiest fiscal issue the school will wrestle with is the huge losses suffered by the school’s pension fund.

“Much of the challenge relates to the impact on the pension plans which universities will be required to make annual payments to, to replenish lost values,” Osborne said.

In addition to the public forum, the school has started a $500,000 innovation fund in order to provide monetary assistance in the implementation of some of the new measures the task force conceives of.

In the coming weeks, the task force plans to start small discussion groups and provide regular updates about its efforts to the school community.

“The university must become more innovative, looking for new ways to generate revenues, minimize waste and reduce costs,” Osborne said.