Minutes of the University Budget Committee

Meeting Date: December 17, 2009

Regular Members Present: Tim Gavin, Susan DelVecchio, Scott MacGilvray, Don Palumbo, David Long, Todd Fraley

Kevin Seitz notified Chair of inability to attend.

Ex-officio Members Present: Ron Newton (for Kevin Seitz), Anne Jenkins, Gary Vanderpool, Wanda Sandeford, Jeff Shinpaugh, Joe Gaddis, Travis Poole, Provost Sheerer

Meeting was called to order by Chairman Tim Gavin.

Agenda Items:

1. Presentation on tuition and fees by Ron Newton, Chair of tuition and fees committee:

The General Assembly has set the tuition increase for 2010-2011 at the lesser of $200 or 8%, but allowed the option to increase non-resident tuition further. In response, President Bowles has requested all campuses to generate alternative proposals that he plans to ask the General Assembly to consider when it reconvenes in May. The alternative proposal generated by ECU is for a 3.6% increase that is tied to the higher education cost of living increase. The increases for non-residents and medical students were higher. The alternative proposal is favored by the ECU board of trustees.

Under the general assembly mandate, all $5.5 million would stay in the NC general budget and not help the campus out. Under the Alternative proposal, the funds raised from graduate and undergraduate increases would go to financial aid and to improve academic quality and retention programs. The medical school increases would be used to move educational infrastructure costs from ECU physicians where they currently reside.

Student fees to rise by $ 70, most of the monies will be used to support education technology improvements, and athletic facility improvements

2. Presentation to committee by Provost Sheerer:

The presentation by provost Sheerer was in the form of a question and answer session on issues of interest to the committee.

1. How will we deal with future budget issues as the University is already operating very “lean” after the prior years budget cuts? The administration is anticipating that there will be further reversions demanded by the General Assembly this budget year. With this in mind there have been significant funds that have been held in reserve. This will allow the University to cover a very likely 5% onetime reversion this year. The goal is to hold the money centrally rather than releasing all of the monies to the departments now only to demand a return of the dollars later when a reversion is demanded from the State. There is also recognition that there are several very important one time needs that will likely need to be funded this year, and these will need to be carefully prioritized.

2. How did the funding formula fit into the workload analysis? The funding formula is very complex, and determines a large component of the University’s funding. Depending on the area, there are different funding levels for each student credit hour generated, and the funding for the doctoral programs is different still. The funding model is a major component of how monies were allocated to units, but other factors were also considered including support for research and other activities consistent with the Universities mission. Therefore, the funding formula played a role in the workload analysis, but it was not the only factor.

3. Did the workload analysis play a role in where budget cuts were made? In some cases it did, but in others it did not. In the arts and sciences it did seem to play a role mainly because of the need to ensure that there were enough sections of the core courses to accommodate all of the new students. This issue was more problematic because of the loss of many of the fixed term positions that had taught these sections.

4. What impact will there be on academic advising? The goal is to improve advising, and in part the increased funds requested in the alternative tuition increase proposal will go to further developing academic advising and improving this area. Enhancing this is key, as it will also likely help with retention, especially of the more academically gifted students. The importance of retaining students cannot be stressed enough, as ECU will likely face financial penalties if we are not able to meet the retention targets set by GA.

5. Why do we only have 10 academic merit scholarships? The reason it is only 10 this year is that that is all that the endowement for these scholarships can support given the economy. There is a need for increasing the endowment to allow for greater numbers of merit based scholarships. The honors college will likely help in this regard as it may be able to attract more donors to support scholarships for these students.

6. What are the Provost’s priorities for next year?

a. We need to improve the infrastructure to avoid the wasting of time that we see so many people engaged in. We need to get better data. We still have a need for system reengineering. As an example changes need to be made to grants management to improve efficiency and make sure we can get the most money we can from the grants and avoid having to give dollars back.

b. A second goal is to do really good hires in all areas. Promoting good leaders who understand the mission of the college and units and working with them to get people to work better across departments within a unit.

c. Continue work on the faculty manual revision and the university policy manual ensuring that all policies and procedures are in the correct location, and easily accessible.

Next Meeting: January 21, 2009 at 4:00pm in Rawl Annex 142