Request for Feedback on University Budget Process

OK, here are a few observations/comments/questions about this process:

First, overall it is an excellent thing to attempt this level of involvement in the budget planning process, particularly at an important cross-roads (some would say crisis) for both WWU and the state. I have been in touch with faculty at other universities in other states, and they are much more "in the dark" about their budget process.

Down at the department level, many of us suffered a bit due to miscommunication or misunderstanding about the importance of the initial phase of this process; in our department we never had the level of detailed discussion needed to inform our College during its planning process, and essentially had to go back and have those discussions after some cuts and reduction scenarios had already been planned. The lesson for everyone from this should be to develop detailed plans and responses, at the department level, from the outset. I would suppose this could apply just as well to an optimisitic scenario that involves distribution of additional money down the road when things recover, or to another round of fun budget cuts next year, and the year after next...

There are two highly frustrating aspects of the process (aside from the obvious one that the whole budget implosion is in itself highly frustrating). Here is the first: During discussions of what could/should/should not be cut at the department level, we discovered that the "pots of money" aspect of WWU is more sacred than the decisions we can make at the department level. When discussing the various budget cut plans, and how we could meet our target, it became clear that certain items were off the table. The number of TA positions, and their tuition waivers, "do not count" as part of any department-level budget cuts because those are funded from a different pot of cash. The level of appointment for our Instructor could not be discussed or included in our plans, as that too is funded via another pot of cash. It is difficult to plan a department budget if certain important items are off the table, and if cuts occur in these "non-negotiable" areas this can force other decisions that adversely impact what we do. I would hope these sorts of things are discussed/considered at the Dean/Provost/VP levels, but these "money pots" do hinder a bottom-up budget planning process.

The second is that despite the pledge that Excellence would be among the important criteria for making the actual budget cuts, there are many examples of cuts that have been made, or will be made clear in the very near future, where the Excellent have been cut the most. Within CST, the new materials science program (AMSEC) has served as a sort of cash cow. Within my department, the largest cut made to any of the faculty or staff turns out to be a aimed at a person who just yesterday was presented with one of the President's Exceptional Effort Awards. Among the faculty, the only group to have a cut in their contracted salaries imposed on them were the faculty who were awarded Special Merit. In these cases, and many more, it seems that factors other than excellence guided these decisions.

First, bernieh, thanks for the feedback!

And, for the understanding: that this is a continuous learning process.  We will never get it entirely right; first time, I am sure there were lots of things we could do better; and we will continue to improve so long as we critically review lessons learned.

Appreciate the examples you gave.  As we think about the general process (instead of the particulars of a decision), we need to figure out how to, in a general way, avoid such problematic steps.  The best principle I can think of, since excellence means so many things to different people in different circumstances, is to leave decisions to those closest to the subjects for they know what, for example, protecting excellence might mean.  Would welcome your thoughts on how a process modification might produce better results.

Bruce

Thanks President Shepherd,
One process modification that would be helpful would be to have a more consistent statement of what the fiscal decision makers (the Deans and other higher entities) view as priorities in terms of our intro/GUR teaching duties, and the duties we have to our major/minor students (and to our larger community and profession).

During this process we (meaning faculty at the department level) were often told in various ways that we have been expected to "keep our GURs up" and that there is, or will be, some sort of additional scrutiny placed on "classes that are too small". The net effect of these communications appears to place a preference on, using my department as an example, making sure we have lots of Geology 101 sections at the expense of other activities. To many of our department's faculty, the hallmark of our program is the set of in-depth, hands-on experiences we ensure our majors have in their 400 level courses. Many of these would be considered "small"; having 10 or so students. Many of them utilize specialized equipment and/or lab facilities, that in turn require adequete technical support. To our students, these "too small" courses are often the most valuable part of their exerience at Western. Our students are also highly valued by employers due in large part to the skills they aquire in these courses.

So far, the budget cutting process has favored the "intro side", at least in our department. The cuts that have been slated, aimed at our technical staff (along with reductions in our level of TA support, reductions in tuition support for some of these TAs, and reductions in allied programs such as Sci-Tech and AMSEC), will impact the ability to support our upper division courses. These same cuts will have larger impacts on more specialized activities, such as supervising senior theses, and on research productivity. During this process, I (along with many others) pointed out some of these consequences. Difficult choices were made, but the fact remains that during this round of cuts arguements for protecting upper division/grad/research activities did not win the day.

So, if maintaining large GUR courses is the desired priority, then the process needs little adjustment. If, on the other hand, small classes with opportunities to use sophisticated equipment, senior theses, grad programs, and high levels of research productivity are priorities, then the process needs to be adusted to recognize this. For many departments and programs, technical staff are absolutely vital to these activities, but this reality was not well considered during this process.

I would like to pass along my appreciation for the inclusiveness and transparency of the 2009-11 operating budget process. I believe the openness of the process offered significant reassurance during a time when many of us were feeling very apprehensive about the state government’s budget proposals and their possible impact on Western.

Throughout the process, we were informed and reassured, to the extent possible, that programs and people would be protected. Ultimately, it seems that significant threats were mitigated and new opportunities addressed, moving us collectively towards our goals.

Searching internally to fill new positions and assisting displaced employees with services offered by our Outplacement Center showed true concern for the people of the university.

Collectively, this is enterprise risk management (ERM) on a strategic level at its best. So, to answer the question about our budget process, I think we got a whole lot of it right.

With that in mind, I would like to suggest considering a broader, hopefully university-wide, approach to integrating enterprise risk management into our operating budget processes. There is no single, ideal ERM blueprint for higher education. The processes we choose should be doable without being burdensome. Business and Financial Affairs departments have been implementing a pilot project in enterprise risk management for several years. We used a budget process that was quite successful.

Units could be encouraged to develop their own, efficient ways of identifying, assessing and managing threats and opportunities related to their objectives within the operating budget decision-making process.

Like others in higher education around the country, units may find that ERM provides a framework to bring clarity when evaluating disparate budget items.

Tying budget decision elements directly to both the University’s and a unit’s mission and goals enhances the likelihood the unit will meet their goals. Taking programmatic risks is part of our President’s new initiatives and is a positive. Taking unidentified and unplanned risks costs money and reduces efficiency, which we can ill afford at present.

As we move towards our vision of becoming the premier public comprehensive university in the country, all of us need to find new ways of mitigating the potential risks to maximize achieving our strategic, operational, compliance, financial and, especially, reputational objectives. Folding a university-wide ERM approach into the operating budget process would be a useful tool to help us reach our collective goals.