Budget Development Process Update

Colleagues,

As you know, the 2020 budget development process is well underway, and our budget is on track for its upcoming review and ultimate approval by the Board of Trustees. Vice Provost Linda Kosten and Provost Jeremy Haefner have presented the budget to small groups so far, and we wanted to share this presentation with the campus community. It can be found in PioneerWeb in the upper middle area of the “Employee” tab.

Some highlights include:

1. In constructing the budget, 37 different units across campus met with the Provost to share their revenue projections (when available) and their expense requests. All of this information was aggregated, and the presentation captures high-level details.
2. The total revenue change currently projected for FY2020 is $28.6 million. This amount includes a sizable increase of graduate student enrollments largely driven by the partnership with our online education vendor, 2U.
3. Expense change requests, including contractual obligations, University-wide obligations such as our merit increases made this year, expenses related to the increased revenue generation and compensation increases that we anticipate for the following year, as well as aspirational requests, total $55 million.
4. A new feature of our budget process is a multi-year planning and analysis tool that enables us to have conversations focused on a five-year projection. These conversations have been very helpful in understanding the aspirations of our units across campus.

The next step in the budget process is communicating to units the initial set of requests that can be recommended to the Board of Trustees. This year, we are categorizing requests in two tiers. Tier 1 requests will be funded July 1, 2019, while Tier 2 requests will be funded soon after the fall census date, if we are able to attain the needed revenue. In addition, one-time funding allocations will be considered prior to April 15, 2019.

We hope this message and the presentation available on PioneerWeb offer more insight into our budget process. We look forward to releasing the annual budget transmittal after the Board of Trustees’ consideration and approval in June. We appreciate the campus community’s interest in the budget, as well as the collaboration and hard work of faculty and staff across campus to guide and inform our discussions throughout this process.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Chopp, Chancellor

Jeremy Haefner, Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor