Amid a sea of economic uncertainty in California, 澳门六合彩资料库 Davis continues to tack toward a new, more transparent budget model that will provide campus faculty and administrative leaders with a greater understanding of and control over their budgets.
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter, in a letter this week to the Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors, shed some light on the latest developments concerning campus budgeting.
In the , and in numerous presentations throughout the past two months, Hexter, as the campus鈥檚 chief budget officer, and staff from the campus鈥檚 team stressed that the shift to the new budget model will not drive any change in budget allocations for the 2012-13 year.
Instead, the budget model鈥檚 major change for the upcoming year will be a simple 鈥渞ecoloring鈥 of campus funds to ensure more clarity and transparency. In other words, deans, vice chancellors, business officers and everyone else will see a new structure in place that will allow them to more easily see the sources of revenues flowing to individual schools, colleges, departments and units.
Today, for example, departments and units are accustomed to receiving general fund dollars, which are a combination of tuition and state support.
But beginning July 1, for the 2012-13 budget year, units that generate undergraduate tuition revenue through instructional activities will be able to identify a portion of their general fund, or 鈥19900鈥 funding, as coming directly from tuition. Units will be keeping a portion of their tuition based on a formula that considers number of student credit hours, number of majors and number of graduates.
In addition, units that conduct research will be able to keep more of the indirect, or overhead, costs that sponsors pay 澳门六合彩资料库 Davis for research. These overhead reimbursements are based on direct research expenditures and, under the new budget model, more of these funds will remain with the units that actually generate them.
Units will also be receiving a provost allocation, which is funded largely by the provost鈥檚 keeping a portion of each of the revenue streams and pooling these funds with state funds. Assuming that state support for the campus is not cut any further, the provost will use this allocation to assure that 2012-13 allocations to units are roughly equivalent to their 2011-12 allocations.
As 澳门六合彩资料库 Davis grows, as its schools and colleges adopt new approaches to teaching and as enrollment patterns shift, academic leaders will have a more precise idea of how those changes will directly affect their funding.
鈥淲e will still need to grapple with the state budget going up or down, with tax referenda and state tax policy, and with changes in enrollment,鈥 Hexter said. 鈥淭he model isn鈥檛 changing any of that.
鈥淲e鈥檝e been using this iterative process to explain to faculty and administrators how this new model will work, and to consider their feedback. We鈥檙e introducing people to as much detail as they need and want. And we are listening to what they have to say. We are locking in on an approach, but we will refine it, as needed, as we move forward.鈥
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Dave Jones, Dateline, 530-752-6556, dljones@ucdavis.edu