University of Minnesota, Morris

Campus Resource and Planning Committee/Strategic Planning Committee

 

October 19, 2006

 

Present:           Joe Basel, Sara Haugen, LeAnn Dean, Andy Lopez, Peter Wyckoff,

                        Sharon VanEps, Sarah Mattson, Cassie McMahon, Arne Kildegaard,

                        Pareena Lawrence, Maddy Maxeiner, Bryan Herrmann

 

Absent:           Lowell Rasmussen, Dan Moore

 

Guests:                        Jacquie Johnson, Gary Strei, Sandy Olson-Loy

 

(In these minutes:  Continued discussion of budget)

 

Andy started with three announcements:  1) introduced Adele Raymond as the support person while Carrie is on medical leave; 2) e-mail from Troy Goodnough suggesting that CRPC create a sustainability sub-committee; 3) Engin Sungur, FCLT, would like to start a series of seminars on alternate Thursdays (when TAFS is not meeting), regarding Strategic Planning.  These seminars would be at the same time as TAFS (5:00 p.m.).

 

Budget

 

Gary passed around hand-outs regarding the budget.  He had met with the vice chancellors prior to his meeting with CRPC; the vice chancellors asked Gary to make his presentation to the committee as transparent as possible.  Gary discussed the handouts and answered questions.  Gary said he felt comfortable the figures for 2006/2007 were fairly accurate.  He did have to move funds around to cover some deficits; he called this Òsoft money.Ó  The main concern was if the central allocation would continue to be what it was in the past.  Gary broke down the amounts and explained them to the committee (IRS fee were removed but this amount is used to offset additional charges to UMM–administration fees, Native American Tuition Waiver, etc.).  There is a ChancellorÕs discretionary fund–however the ChancellorÕs office is not sitting on this money.  This is where the Native American tuition waiver comes out of among other obligations. 

 

There were concerns about the University fees.  Pareena asked if there is a fixed percentage per student.  UMM gets 100% of University fees but it is ÒswappedÓ out for other services.  Andy stated the bottom line is UMM needs to remain very vigilant with regard to the budget.    Peter wanted to know if the figures between budgets for ÒacademicÓ and ÒstaffÓ could be broken into Òacademic,Ó ÒP&A,Ó and Òstaff.Ó  Gary said he would be able to break these salaries and fringes out.  Peter also questioned if the problems in financial shortcomings were due to lack of students.  Gary said he felt it was due to a lack of students, but also that students are taking fewer credits per year due to the cost per credit.  Sandy stated that more students are non-degree seeking.   Arne Kildegaard asked as to when UMM knew of the budget problems; Gary said he new of the problem when James Morales told him the early part of June the student enrollment was down.  Jacquie added that UMM has a conservative estimate of incoming students.  She sees the need for Gary to be given more authority to do budget modeling.  One area of concern is the academic positions that are being advertised without informing the budget office for planning purposes; this must be changed.  Jacquie said it will take a couple years to get the budget back on track.  Sandy said that part of the goal for the Strategic Positioning Task Force was to come up with a doable budget.  Gary said another major obstacle for the budget was the renovation of the Social Science building project.  The project came in over budget and Lowell had to use his reserves to cover this shortfall.  Jacquie said that the campus, academic and non-academic, has been informed about the budget problems but maybe this information should be put out to the campus community again.  She added that once the program reviews have been completed UMM will be in a better position to work with the budget deficit.  Students and members of the UMM community will need to be informed via e-mail on the outcomes of the program reviews.  Joe Basel asked what the plan is to solve the deficit.  Gary said he had three plans in mind:  1) move $150K from IRS fees to O&M accounts; 2) charge auxiliary units fees for space they are using; and 3) some positions not being filled this year or not at the salary that was originally budgeted.  Gary said he felt if we are able to do the above we could recoup about $300K.  Gary briefly went over the other two handouts before time ran out. 

 

Resolution

 

The committee asked Gary to come back next week and continue the budget discussion.

 

 

 

Minutes prepared by Adele Raymond