Here are the Academic Affairs Budget Hearing Minutes:
UTC BUDGET HEARING
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
April 2, 2001
Dr. Stacy opened the budget hearing at 3:00 p.m. by stating that the
University Budget Committee has asked Richard Brown to look again at the
revenue assumptions. The two major revenue sources are state
appropriations and student enrollment. Today we will hear from Dr. Berry,
who will be presenting the Academic Affairs budget. Dr. Stacy then asked
Vice Chancellor Richard Brown to present a quick overview of revenue
assumptions.
Vice Chancellor Brown welcomed everyone to the Academic Affairs budget
hearing. His first review was to go over the budget issues for 2000-2001.
Budget Issues for 2001-2002:
* Uncertainty of state funding; how to balance state budget and bring new
revenue to
the State
* Income tax or state lottery.
* Maintaining current student base
* Transfer students
* Stabilize Tenncare at the state level
* Potential lawsuit for equalization of rural county teachers pay that
could have a
significant impact on the state budget this year
* Compliance with the Gier Mediation agreement
* Articulation agreement between the two year colleges and UTC
* Institutional Effectiveness recommendation
* Institutional Costs:
* Benefits
* Insurance
* Equipment
* Utilities
* Custodial issues
* Preventive maintenance issues
Costs going forward 2000-2001:
The base budget for 2000-2001 is $67,274,343 with a little increase to the
revenue base of $274,000 and again on the expenditure side also we had a
decrease in revenues of $65,389 and again on the expenditure side of the
budget we remove $65,389. The adjusted revenue is about $67,483,000 with
putting about $7,000 in fund balance the adjusted costs going forward is
$67,476,000.
Revenue Assumptions 2001-2002:
Our adjusted base revenue is $67,483,000. The loss of enrollment during
the prior year cost the institution $615,000 making the adjusted revenue
$66,868,076. The Governor's recommendation for this year is projected to
be about $700,000. With a flat enrollment of 8,319 and a 5% fee increase
the University is projecting $834,000 new money. The adjusted revenue will
be approximately $68,402,000; again, these are basic assumptions going
forward. With the adjusted costs going forward, and unallocated revenues
at about $1 million we start this process.
We have requested that each Vice Chancellor along with the Academic Affairs
Division insure their budget proposal ties to the University mission.
Every budget presentation should be tied back to the University's mission
statement, SACS recommendations, and the recommendations of the
Institutional Effectiveness Committee. All budget information will be
posted on the web.
Summary of budget presentations:
Chancellor's Office base budget of $840,856 requesting $880,167 making this
an increase of $39,311.
Student Development's base budget is $2,007,694 on the institutional side;
their request is for an increase of $88,058. Most of this will be used for
positions to clean up the University Center.
University Advancement's base budget is approximately $1.2 million. They
are requesting $1.6 million. An increase of about $403,000. Most of this
request ties to development and working with recruitment effort as well as
advertising in University Relations.
Athletics base budget is $5.266 million and Oval is requesting $5.233
million, an addition of $55,315 for gender equity, women's golf, and other
issues involving coaches.
Finance & Operations base budget is $11.9 million requesting $12.3 million
for this year. This is an increase of $391,260. Most of this involves the
improvement of the building environments, custodial clean up and fix-up.
Richard Brown introduced Dr. Bill Berry, Provost and Vice Chancellor for
Academic Affairs, who will present the Academic Affairs budget.
Dr. Stacy made the comment that the percentage of overall funding
distribution that is part of the function of instruction appears to have
decreased by about 3% since 1995. The question is where did the 3%
decrease go. One percent appears to have gone to research, one percent
went to academic support and one percent was spread among other things,
mainly student services. The second question Dr. Stacy presented was where
are we in regards to academic salaries. It appears the University while
making some improvements has not made large strides in academic salaries
since 1995 according to the peer averages. This may be an indication of
why the spending for instruction dropped 3% because we have not kept pace
with the salary increases at our peer institutions.
Dr. Berry complemented the budget planning process established by Dr.
Stacy. This is the most open and democratic process he has experienced and
is responsible for considerable progress. Dr. Berry complemented Dr. Stacy
for pushing the divisions to get real about their budgets. He also
applauded the efforts made by Richard Brown and Debbie Parker and others in
terms of reinforcing the connections between budget, planning and
evaluation. We have made progress in this area in trying to link those
various processes. And again, MISSION…MISSION…MISSION.
Dr. Berry presented the Academic Affairs Mission Statement. In a nutshell,
EDUCATION OF STUDENTS…EDUCATION OF STUDENTS…EDUCATION OF STUDENTS.
Enlightening their minds, disciplining those minds,
TEACHING…TEACHING…TEACHING. We do this by providing classroom instruction,
various external experiential learning processes, and the complementary
activities of teaching, research, and service. Dr. Berry indicated his job
was to support what faculty does at this institution. Faculty are the
one's that first and foremost accomplish the University Mission, and the
rest of us support the faculty doing this.
Academic Affairs Vision Statement
The academic affairs vision statement sets forward a vision of the
University that is supportive of the University Mission Statement, the
Chancellors priorities, and sees the University as becoming the best place
in the southeast among public universities for undergraduate education. A
place that establishes or develops and enhances existing graduate and
professional programs particularly those which have some direct and
especially important tie to the community and surrounding area. It
reinforces the metropolitan mission of the University and it also does some
things in terms of undergraduate education that reinforces the commitment
to internships, cooperative education and independent student research and
creative activity. It sets some ambitions goals. Hard copies of this will
be sent out.
Five Strategic Initiatives:
The Academic Affairs Division in claiming the assets of technology has made
much progress over the last three years. National data show 4-5% of budget
is an average expenditure on technology. Academic Affairs have been
spending 9% on technology for the past three years. We have made very
rapid strides to catch up.
In recruiting, retaining, and celebrating diversity, UTC has become the
only historical white institution in the State of Tennessee to meet all
three criteria of the Greir stipulation. Our student body is 17% African
American. The percentages continue to improve for faculty, staff,
undergraduate and graduate. In representation terms of our student
enrollment, again, we are not where we want to be, but we have done better
than any other historically white institution in the State of Tennessee.
Improving the potential of partnerships: Dr. Berry indicated that the
Chancellor, Deans, John Schaerer, Richard Brown, and others deserve
recognition for helping us to do this. The public school initiatives,
UnimProvident, various other health areas, all kinds of tremendous progress
is going on and in some cases are very visible to improve the standing of
the institution in the community.
Demonstrating accountability and return on investment: Every program at
this University that has gone through accreditation or reaccreditation, or
THEC program approval process has come out positively and with high marks.
Enhancing the learning environment: Provost Berry cited improvement in the
way the campus looks, the various construction projects, improvements of
technology in classrooms, and in other places on campus. Dr. Berry felt
very good about the learning atmosphere that faculty and staff are creating
here at the University.
UTC Academic Achievements
Dr. Berry made reference to the US News and World report whereby UTC ranked
15 out of 123 southern universities in the area of academic selectivity.
UTC also ranked 21 out of 123 southern universities on academic reputation
by administrators across the region. Academic reputation and proximity are
the two factors that are at the top of why the students choose the
institution they choose. From 1994-95 thru 1999-2000, UTC ranked first
among Tennessee universities in total performance funding points. Another
tremendous change has been in external grant funding at UTC. In the last
three years, it has increased 300%. We have gone from 3.5 million to 10.5
million in external grant funding as of this year to date. We expect to
reach 12 million by the end of this year. Grant funding is most often
cited as an index of research activity and it certainly is a measure of how
we are performing in that area. Much of this money is outreach dollars so
it also tells us how we are playing our metropolitan role in outreach
serving the city in the surrounding region.
Regarding students and their academic success, UTC has most recently
graduated a higher proportion of African American freshmen than any other
Tennessee university. UTC's persistence to graduation rates has increased
by 15% during the last 10 years. Minority students show an improvement of
24%. By 2004-2005 we hope to improve by 55%. We have accomplished these
things in face of the budget cuts. In the past year along we have suffered
a decline of 285 students at a cost of $615,000 to our budget.
The Academic Affairs Division dealt with enrollment increases and declining
budgetary support by increasing the percentage of teaching done by
adjuncts. Currently, the proportion of total faculty FTE at UTC is above
25%, and if you listen to the SACS recommendations, you will hear them
talking about over reliance on adjuncts. In looking back to 1996-97 and
compare it to this year, the number of full time faculty has decreased by
five. Over this period FTE enrollment, not just headcount, went up a
couple of hundred. That is for fall this year compared to fall four years
ago. UTC has fewer faculty lines, and a 200 FTE enrollment increase.
Complicating that picture further we have started an Occupational Therapy
Program, we have started graduate programs in athletic training, and the
educational specialist degree in education, and PTS moved from
undergraduate to graduate. In addition, we have launched a new general
education program which was projected to need 10 additional faculty lines
to support this initiative at a cost of $500,000 while the foundation has
put up some temporary funding for the general education program, nothing
has moved into the regular budget to support the general-education program.
Faculty salary averages for peer institutions averages $65,000 compared to
our $61,000. This is a difference of $4,000. As you can see, faculty
salaries have been lagging behind since 1995.
Budget Request 2001-02
The academic area has about 1.4 million in unfunded obligations. Part of
this is for increases that were above budgeted lines where Dr. Berry had to
hire some people above what was budgeted. After adjunct faculty expenses,
the biggest single item is for part-time personnel where we are below
budgeted requirements. Summer school salaries, again we are currently
under budget, but the institution's making some progress going towards a
different way of budgeting summer school, which may resolve itself.
Although right now we are short. Student Teacher support, accreditation
costs, graduate assistantships are $52,000 below what we have been
spending. We have spent 100% more in Institutional memberships need an
additional $15,000. In salary increases we have UC Foundation rollovers
$97,181, part of the $97,000 is a general-education position, half is
engineering faculty adjustments. We have grant rollovers of $236,000
(Southeast Center for the Arts, a position line, and hiring of two new
grant writers in Grants and Research, and funding the Center for Applied
Social Research would take approximately $75,000 of the $236,000 to put in
the budget). We can cut this, but it will cut our grant dollars which we
cannot afford to do. The deans have requested new faculty lines totaling
$438,000, but Provost Berry has cut this to $175,000. What makes up this
$175,000 are lines for faculty or we jeopardize accreditation. Consultants
say that we need one to three additional faculty, and Dr. Berry is trying
to fund one internally. SACS recommendations hit us hard on reliance on
part-time faculty. I have underestimated what it costs to fill faculty
lines above budget, deans are telling me that they are going to need at
least the amount of money they requested. I have recommended $41,450 for
staff, new position upgrades internally, Dr. Berry recommends $100,000. The
Provost recommends $460,000 in instructional equipment, this will get us
back to the levels they had in 1994 when we had much more enrollment, less
research expectation, and did not have the number of programs we now have
on campus. In the operating budget, the deans asked for a 10% increase in
budget, but Dr. Berry is recommending a 5% increase.
In summary, the base budget for Provost and Academic Affairs is $
31,002,425 and Dr. Berry is requesting an increase to $33,638,463 which is
an increase of $2,636,038. These increases are for the general improvement
of the academic instructional quality of the institutional, they include
memberships, new faculty lines, faculty replacements, staff-new
positions/upgrades, equipment, 5% operating budget increase, professional
advisement and retention, graduate assistantships, and library
acquisitions. Dr. Stacy thanked Dr. Berry and the Deans for an outstanding
presentation. The Chancellor continued to stress how appreciative he is of
the ability of our faculty to continue to out perform the resources
allocated to them.
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