Proposed Budget FY 2002
(pending outcome of Legislative Session and Board of Regents approval)

This is the fifth year for campus-wide participation in the budget process, although last year there was no money to allocate due to the shortfall in salary appropriations. Each year has resulted in increased advanced planning and participation in the generation of requests and proposals from across the campus for the Cabinet to consider at the beginning of its deliberations.

The allocations which have been made represent budget additions from projected new revenue. Final decisions by the General Assembly and Governor, as well as changes in enrollment, could necessitate changes in the actual allocations. At this time, the shortfall in state revenue from projections is worrisome.

Not included in the allocations are additions for salary increases, since the collective bargaining agreements are still in the negotiations process. We anticipate the settlement to be fully funded in the Governor’s salary bill. We also expect the funding required for salary annualization of Regents merit employees step increases required in the AFSCME contract to be included in the salary bill. We do not, however, expect that our salary allocation will include funding for increases in health insurance benefits, which will then need to be covered by reallocation. Again, changes in the state revenue from projections could have an adverse impact on funding.

Each division will be expected to target reallocations of at least 2 percent toward achievement of our strategic planning goals. These are to be reported to the Cabinet on March 31.

Principal sources of income are state appropriations and tuition. The Governor’s budget recommendation for UNI, exclusive of salary increases, however, provided NO additional dollars for our operating budget. This compares to a request by the Regents for UNI of $3,000,000. Tuition is our only source of new income, and is projected to provide an additional $3,622,317. Of this, 19 percent ($688,240) is designated for student aid set-aside by current practice.

The Cabinet proposes to distribute the tuition income as follows (There is no new money proposed by the Governor, other than what will come in the salary bill):

Allocations have been made first to those areas in which there are unavoidable cost increases, second to some of those areas for which prior commitments had been made, third to inflation, and then to initiatives in support of the strategic plan (hotlink to it on web). All amounts are incremental additions to base budgets. You will recall that last year all tuition income had to be dedicated to meeting the shortfall in salary funding from the state. This forced reallocations to cover previous commitments. Funding this year restores those commitments.

The items funded represent priorities of the strategic plan, the performance indicators presented to the Board of Regents, and the highest priorities of divisions of the university, as well as some areas of unavoidable or nondiscretionary cost increases. The total dollars requested from all areas of the campus were several times greater than the total funds projected to be available.

The Cabinet sincerely appreciates the thoughtful deliberations by the campus community during the proposal process.

As in the past, each vice president and the director of external relations will provide a consultative process to seek employee and student comment on the budget proposal. Each division is asked to report back to the full cabinet by March 2. In that report, each VP/director will be asked to identify proposed changes in the university allocation. Reallocations within each division for FY 2002 should be reported by March 31.

The web version of this document provides an e-mail response mechanism for those wishing to comment directly to the Cabinet. To respond in this manner, follow this link to acting vice president of business and finance, Eunice Dell (eunice.dell@uni.edu). Greater weight, however, will be given to those comments which flow from each division consultative process.

After consideration of all comments, the Cabinet will publish a "near-final" draft to the WEB-site on March 26. There will be a one-week period for email input to this version. The final draft, to be presented to the Board of Regents, will be published on the WEB on April 10.

FY2003 budget requests should also be developed during this consultative process and forwarded by March 2. Most "business as usual" needs will fall into the internal reallocation process. Requests to the Board of Regents should reflect the strategic plan, indicate measurable outcomes, and be capable of generating political support.

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