A&S Planning and Budget Commmittee Minutes Feb 25 1999

Art's & Sciences Planning and Budget CommitteeMinutes of 2/25/99 Meeting

    Members attending:
  • George Barnes
  • Ginger Brown (Staff Rep)
  • Julia Dietrich (ex officio)
  • Stephen Edgell
  • Robert Kimball
  • Nathan Schwartz (Chair)
  • Wiley Williams

    Visitors attending:
  • Jeanie McCabe
  • Shirley Willihnganz (Acting Dean)

The majority of the meeting was a discussion between the Committee and Dean Willihnganz concerning the 1% (of all base salary lines) CAR reallocation within the College for next year's salary increment. Copies of guidelines from the Provost for making this reallocation were distributed. The highlights are: (1) across-the-board departmental reductions are prohibited, (2) unit strategic priorities and the Strategy for Excellence must be reflected, (3) Challenge for Excellence funds are off limits, (4) there can be no loss of student credit hours or tuition revenue, (5) units may evaluate current faculty teaching loads and make changes, and (6) to the extent possible, cuts may not compromise the integrity of the program, the quality of teaching, and the goals of the Undergraduate Quality Initiative.

Following discussion at our last meeting, information on monies available from open lines was presented. Due to retirements from the recent buyout and other reasons, there are twelve faculty lines that are open, for which no current hiring search is being conducted, and which have surplus funds over current commitments to the retirement buyouts and to replacement instructors.. There is a total of $255,730 available after taking out for retirement buyouts and for continuing temporary replacement instructors. That is $24,270 short of the approximately $280,000 that is required to cover the 1% reallocation. It is expected that this remaining amount of money can be found from a variety of sources such as small savings in lecture lump sum.

The A&S; plan is to use this money from the open lines to cover the required cuts next year. The following caveats and assumptions were noted:

1) This is a temporary one year, one time fix. All this plan does is put off for one year the hard task of finding permanent cuts to cover the reallocation.

2) There is risk in using this solution. If the College cannot find permanent cuts or sources of new revenue to cover the required reallocation, the cuts in faculty lines will defacto become permanent. Of course not all 12 lines would be lost, but around 6 to 7 would be lost.

3) It is understood that the Provost is aware that this is a temporary cut and that it is the intention of the College to find the money elsewhere and thereby reclaim and fill these lines in the future. It is hoped that the searches can be done next year (1999/2000) with the hiring to follow for the year 2000/1. This understanding will be put in writing as an understanding between the College and the Provost's Office.

4) There is loss for next year in using this solution. This money would have been used for covering important, desperately needed, one time purchases of equipment and other supplies in areas such as technology. This money from these lines this year is an important part of the reallocation of over $750,000 to technology purchases that the College is making this year. The College had planned on a similar amount for next year, but this will have a large impact on those expectations.

With these assumptions and caveats, the Committee unanimously endorsed this plan.

The meeting then turned to a discussion of some possible ways to find the CAR money needed so that the College does not lose the permanent lines that are being temporarily used to fund the reallocation

It was noted that there may be an excess of A12 appointments within the College over and above those for department chairs. These appointments cost more in salary and fringe benefits as well as reduce teaching loads. These are negotiated between department chairs and the Dean. Sometimes the extra money to fund these are found within the department and sometimes it comes from the College It was suggested that an investigation of them might be in order.

It was noted that the Departments of Chemistry and Biology have substantially larger S&E; budgets than other departments. This is because of the cost of expendable supplies for laboratory courses they teach. It was further noted that the students taking these courses are not charged lab fees to cover this additional cost. The students are charged a number of fees over and above the tuition they pay that cover questionable expenses. It was suggested that the possibility of establishing lab fees to cover this cost should be investigated. It would be necessary to insure that revenue from such fees goes directly to the College. Given the difference in S&E; budgets, it is estimated that over $100,000 would be needed to make up this. That would cover a significant percentage of the required reallocation.

Areas for possible cuts in the budget are hard for the Committee to identify from the budget, because there are a number of programs that generate revenue that comes directly to the College. Thus, cutting them would not result in any savings to the College. The Committee needs to be educated on the dynamics of the College programs.

The next meeting was set for Thursday, March 11, from 12:00 to 1:00 in a place to be announced..

The time for the meeting having more than expired, the meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve Edgell

Back to Planning and Budget Page