HARRISBURG — A consulting firm issued a bleak assessment Wednesday of Pennsylvania’s state-owned university system, recommending a series of changes but not dramatic steps such as closing or merging any of its 14 institutions.

One of the 14 institutions is Slippery Rock University.

The report by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems said the universities need better top management, more of a spirit of cooperation and a greater focus on their educational mission, as opposed to their status as regional centers of employment.

It said the State System of Higher Education is plagued by a “climate of distrust, nontransparency, confrontation and competition” and claimed there is weak leadership capacity at all levels.

“Governance is not up to the current challenges,” said the center’s president emeritus Dennis Jones, who outlined the findings for the board. He said the system, for example, just signed a union contract it can’t pay for.

As part of their report the Center recommended that the system given more decision-making authority to schools like SRU, which is one of only two schools in the system that have not seen enrollment declines since 2010, as well as provide incentives for thriving schools like SRU to work more closely with the system’s more troubled universities.

Officials from SRU declined to comment specifically on the Center’s recommendations Wednesday, saying the system’s Board of Governor’s needed time to review the report.

In the past, top level administrators at the school have said that a focus on market-driven majors, expanding postgraduate offerings and adding more online courses and other resources for non-traditional students has led to a rebound in enrollment and stronger finances for SRU.

The system has sustained several years of falling enrollment, mirroring the same downward trend in the number of Pennsylvania high school graduates. Along with a period of cuts or flat state funding, that’s left the system searching for a direction forward. Also Wednesday, the board teed up a 3.5 percent tuition increase for a final vote, but even that will leave a budget deficit of about $38 million.

The report suggested an array of strategies to help turn things around, but nothing as dramatic as closing a campus.

“You don’t have silver bullets in higher education,” Jones told the board. “You’ve used all those up.”

He said closing institutions would negatively affect entire regions and leave behind lingering obligations, such as paying off construction projects. Mergers would probably not save much money, Jones said, citing a recent experience in Georgia.

The study endorsed changing state law to replace the 20-member board of governors with a different structure made up of “lay persons.”

The state system has a $1.7 billion budget and full-time enrollment of about 98,000, down from a peak of about 112,000 six years ago. About half of its students come from families with $48,000 or less in annual household income.

About three-quarters of the budget goes to pay personnel costs. Tuition and fees account for two-thirds of the revenue. Full-time, in-state tuition is currently about $7,200.

Eagle staff writer Phillip Rau contributed to this report