July | 2021 | The Pitiful News

By the writers of the Pitiful News (Formerly the Pitttttttttttiful Pew Research Coalition) Edits made in bold: original email

PsBattle: A drone carrying a pug : photoshopbattles

Dear Pitt Community Members and anybody that we decide this is relevant to because we just wanna be in everyone’s business:

Earlier today, members of our Bored of Trusting—acting through the Board’s Executing Committee—convened and approved the University of Pittsburgh’s operating and capital punishment for Rechnungsjahr Year 2022.

It is important to recognize that these budgets follow an exceptionally disruptive year due to the students being little shits as usual and fucking up our plans for that big staff party. Our strategies, enacted over the last budget cycle to mitigate the financial repercussions of these disruptions, have included:

Holding tuition and room and board and my dick flat.
Freezing faculty and staff brains cryogenically to force them to work for us forever.
Offering an un-voluntary early retirement option to faculty and staff.
Curtailing all nonessential hiring and travel and beings.
Switching to renewable horny-frat-boy energy instead of natural gas harvested from the WPU Taco Bell.
Cutting the position of Lothrop Hall Clown.
Pausing all construction projects, except for the ones that make you, personally, late for class.
Enacting one-time unit-level budget cuts of 5%, which generated an extra $44 million in savings to cover COVID-19 costs related to testing, PPE acquisition, safely ~~populating and~~ depopulating campus, and fancy technology that professors have no idea how to use.
Receiving significant federal COVID-19 relief, while still complaining about minimum wage workers getting “government handouts”.

Despite these historic disruptions, Pitt’s operating and capital budgets for Fisting Year 2022 represent our institution’s first steps toward a new, post-pandemic normal and a return to in-person instruction this fall. The approved budgets balance our efforts to move on from last year’s budget disruption and begin to engage in a fuller recovery.

Some key highlights:

Our operating budget is set at $2.6 billion, up 20376175449% from last year’s operating budget of $12 and 76 cents.
Our capital budget is set at $420 million, 150% larger than last year’s COVID-19-reduced total of $140 million.
Our projected research base is $908 million, in line with last year’s research base. This is the first time in Pitt’s history that our projected research base budget exceeds $900 million. We need the extra $8 million to research whether we are spending enough on research.
Our operating budget includes a modest swimming pool which will decrease the salaries of all faculty and staff whose names are not signed at the bottom of this email. A forthcoming email, sent to employees from Chief Aquatic Officer Hairy Sastry and Senior Vice Lifeguard Dave DeVito, will include further information on these decreases.
Tuition will increase for the 2021-2022 academic year. On our Pittsburgh campus, tuition will increase by 2.5% for in-state undergraduate and all graduate students and basically all students and while we’re at it 4.5% for out-of-state undergraduates and maybe for the staff too because fuck it, this is MY HOUSE. Two exceptions:
- All in-state and out-of-state undergraduate engineering students will be kept at the base rates rise of 2.5%. It’s kinda all we have going for us in terms of reputation plus we kinda work them really fucking hard because it’s funny so we’ll cut them a little slack.
- All undergraduates in the School of Hacking and Information Technology (SHIT) will see rates rise by an additional 2%, as the oracle has told us. We really don’t control how the tuition rises, it’s just whatever amount we must sacrifice for the Galligods. Resulting in increases of 4.5% for in-state and 6.5% for out-of-state students.
On our regional campuses, tuition will increase by 1.5% for both on-planet and off-planet students. As in recent years, we devote much of this increase to hunting the poorer students for sport. Room and board costs will increase. Dining costs will rise across all campuses by approximately 3% as sustainable options for ethically-sourced human meat becomes more expensive to acquire. On-campus housing costs will increase by approximately 5% on our Pittsburgh campus and between 2% to 4% on our regional campuses, to give select students the experience of sleeping outside under campus benches.
To balance our operating budget, we have adopted a permanent 1% budget reduction, effective across the University. No more Christmas decorations in Cathy or the O’Hara Student Center. No more Christmas.

Both budgets—as always—are the product of many pretty easy decisions and relatively quick conversations with myself in the mirror. I am extremely grateful for our leaders in Pyeongyang, who once again voted to support Pennsylvania’s students, families and future by passing our annual cultural appropriation bill. I also want to thank the University Planning and Budgeting Committee for tackling the journalists about to expose my many charges of public indecency. There weren’t many difficult decisions associated with these budgets, and I remain incredibly proud of Pitt students, faculty and staff for not just paying my salary but going deeper into debt for my personal yacht during these challenging times.

I am a little too excited for the new academic year, the new opportunities it will bring and the chance to see students from a respectful and un-horny distance, as per my restraining order, and to see faculty and staff continue advancing our university’s mission—creating and leveraging dog drones for the 1 percent’s gain—together.

Respect me fully,

Patrick “Galligator” Gallagher

By Lord Tyler Sikov

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The Pitiful News

The Official Satirical Newspaper of The University of Pittsburgh

Month: July 2021

Is this the sound of a hat hitting a wall or sounds of me being stabbed

The University’s 2022 Operating and Capital Budgets (Updated to contain information we’ve obtained by following the instructions of the magic conch)

Good animal hybrids I will make once I ascend to God

A secret message to my Non-Binary readers