Budgeting process sees changes
Utah State University’s process for preparing budgets will be more closely linked to performance and achieving the mission of the university than in the past, according to the USU budget report.
The report, or white paper, was co-written by President Kermit L. Hall and Provost Stan Albrecht.
John DeVilbiss, USU spokesman, said the white paper is a budgetary road map for the
university.
“It’s a paper that helps us to make better sense of the budgetary process by defining an overall purpose,” he said.
The new process of determining budgets “links funding to mission and to performance,” DeVilbiss said.
In order for university departments to receive funding, they will have to prioritize their spending wish lists and demonstrate that they are fulfilling their individual missions.
The administration remains optimistic about the university’s financial situation despite “deep and continuing budget difficulties.” USU will continue to improve and emerge from the current period stronger than ever, according to the report.
The report is titled “Utah State University: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow.”
It outlines the guidelines the university will use to prioritize future spending and budget decisions.
“[Before], there wasn’t any overall rhyme or reason, nothing that was helping to guide the ship,” DeVilbiss said. “I think the white paper does that.”
A budget meeting will be held each April to allocate funds based on past performance in achieving priorities and to review and prioritize new budget requests.
Deans from each of the colleges have been instructed to not make cuts to operating funds, teacher salaries, or revenue-enhancing activities.
A Selective Investment Committee, chaired by Christine Hult, an English professor, was established this year. The people on the committee reviewed the top 50 initiatives that were established during the Compact Planning process, which aims to evaluate every department and college at the university. The committee identified 10 priorities, which will be presented to Hall and the Board of Trustees, from this list.
DeVilbiss said hiring more faculty to bring down the faculty-to-student ratio is the highest priority for the university at this time.
Reducing bottleneck courses, enhancing the quality of math tutoring and improving the library system are among other top priorities, he said.
Since July 2001, USU’s budget has decreased by 11.6 percent.
The report states USU has four choices in dealing with financial difficulties and budget cuts: Find new public and private revenues, increase tuition, limit access by increasing enrollment standards or maintain status quo and watch quality erode irreversibly.
Recognizing that academics come first at USU “is essential to understanding recent University actions and those yet ahead,” according to the report.
Examples of “painful steps” the university has taken to cut costs include disbanding the College of Family Life, eliminating the welding engineering and other applied technology programs, closing the photography service operation and ending the popular Glen Miller show, according to the report.
Other factors that increase budget problems are: having state funding based on new enrollment instead of current needs and a “lack of mission differentiation,” or having duplicated, competing programs with Utah’s higher-education system.
Other changes include the creation of a university dashboard, which is a set of performance indicators to be published monthly in a planning document.
The dashboard will contain statistics on students, faculty and finances.
Like the dashboard of a car provides current information on the status of the vehicle, the dashboard “provides a quick overview of our institutional performance,” DeVilbiss said.
“It’s a way of measuring what we value instead of valuing what we measure,” he said.
Departments will also be asked to create their own dashboards.
All of the budget decisions are designed to meet the required budget cut, reallocate funds to institutional priorities and provide disproportionate cuts that reduce or eliminate funding to non-performing programs without harming prioritized programs.
Despite budget difficulties, there are “rays of hope” in 2003.
The Legislature granted $40 million in bonds to rebuild the Merrill Library. The university was also able to avoid layoffs this year because of additional budget cuts that were not made.
There is a hiring freeze in place until at least July, at which time it will be revisited, DeVilbiss said. USU has eliminated 17 support staff positions.
-royburton@cc.usu.edu