OU will see no increase in tuition and fees this year despite a near 5 percent state budget cut equaling nearly $1 million for August alone.

Several cost-cutting measures the university enacted in the past few years made the steady tuition possible, including a reserve that will give OU approximately $5 to $10 million over the next few months, said Jay Doyle, university spokesman.

The reserves will help the university through the next five to six months without affecting students, faculty or staff, OU President David Boren said in a statement.

OU has cut other costs in the past year as well, Doyle said. The university enacted a hiring freeze as well as a faculty and staff salary freeze last fall. The cost-cutting combination saved OU about $9 or $10 million in the past year.

Doyle said he hopes those measures will help OU in the long term as well.

Cost-cutting at OU might not be enough, however.

“If cuts of this magnitude continue, we would need assistance from the state rainy-day fund to avoid more disruptive cuts before the fiscal year is over next June 30,” Boren said.

Oklahoma’s rainy-day fund currently holds $596.6 million, said Shelly Paulk, revenue and budget analyst for the Office of State Finance.

The fund is a bank of excess revenue set aside for times of unexpected revenue shortfall or budget deficit.

If state revenue exceeds estimates for the fiscal year, the state places money in the fund at the end of that year, Paulk said.

The state government can access up to three-eights of the fund if the next fiscal year’s upcoming general revenue expectations are projected by the State Board of Equalization to be lower than the previous year’s, or if the Board of Equalization believes the current fiscal year’s revenues will actually be less than 95 percent of the amount budgeted for that year, said Paulk.

The state can also access one-fourth of the fund in an emergency declared by either the state Legislature or the governor.

Doyle said the state Legislature has been prudent not to access the fund recently but might need to if economic circumstances become worse.

Not all Big 12 schools have been as fortunate as OU, however. Doyle said some universities have raised tuition this year, including the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri.

Oklahoma’s public universities made a pact not to raise tuition and fees this year, Doyle said.

As far as future tuition increases at OU, Doyle said it is too early to predict.

“That’s something that’s definitely going to have to be looked at,” he said. “It’s way too early to say anything along those lines. Is it a serious issue? Yes. But is it a drastic issue? No.”