With the economy in decline, many people are looking to save money wherever they can, and the Board of Regents members are no exception.

A scaled-back Board of Regents meeting will take place on Wednesday in Mass Media and Technology Hall, and the board will have to make decisions about employee salaries and new academic programs.

The Jan. 27 meeting was supposed to take place in Frankfort, but administrators decided to move it to Bowling Green to save the expenses involved in traveling, said Robbin Taylor, vice president for Public Affairs.

It’s a tradition for the January board meeting to take place in Frankfort at the beginning of the legislative session, President Gary Ransdell said.

Regents also typically host a reception for the General Assembly, he said.

But Ransdell and Board of Regents Chair Jim Meyer decided this wasn’t the time to spend the money to have the Frankfort meeting and reception, given the budget pressures in the state and higher education, Ransdell said.

“We felt like we sent a more thoughtful signal by not going,” he said.

Even with a change in location, the board will have several items on their agenda.

They’ll decide whether to renew Athletics Director Wood Selig’s contract and whether to give a raise to Dean Kahler, associate vice president for Enrollment Management, said Deborah Wilkins, chief of staff and general counsel.

At the board’s October meeting, the regents postponed decisions about raises for both Selig and Kahler.

Selig’s raise of about $34,000 is not included in his newly revised contract on the agenda for Wednesday, Wilkins said.

Selig will still be getting a raise, but it will come from private donations approved in December by the WKU Foundation, she said.

The foundation oversees private donations to the university, and some of the money set aside for athletics will pay for Selig’s raise, Wilkins said.

In October, Kahler’s proposed raise was about $19,000, but that raise will now be proposed in phases, and a raise of about $9,000 will be voted on at Wednesday’s meeting, Wilkins said.

The board is also set to approve several new undergraduate certificates, including those in American Sign Language studies and computer literacy, according to the meeting’s agenda materials.