Responses
Using the funding issue facing Community Colleges around the nation that have to meet the Title IX requirements to illustrate a mandated need. While an institution’s priorities, mission statements, desired performance, or research focus drives how funding is partitioned, it will ultimately be superseded by a federal or state mandate. Regardless of what an institution budgets for, it must do so sparingly since state and federal funding is decreasing, and with increasing enrollment, so does cost per student increase. Colleges must make sure that to meet a “want”, they do not have to increase student tuition, which would deter students from attending the college. After the 2008 recession before increasing tuition cost, student services, course offerings, and faculty and staff were cut (Masterson & Mitchell, 2016). Even if institutions budget for these “wants”, the “wants” will be the first thing cut when the budget requires it, and all focus will be on what the institution “needs” to function and not lose enrollment/funding.
Unlike the 2008 recession, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Colleges have also been impacted by refunding millions in student fees. Rutgers University has refunded $50 million in unused campus fees to students (Yuen, 2020). Several universities that did not want to refund its students; however, in the face of lawsuits and overwhelming student outrage have begun to refund portions of their tuition (Yuen, 2020). Universities now need to allocate for this loss in revenue because not only is it the right thing to do, but if they chose not to, it would hurt their reputation. For the Universities that initially and still refuse to refund its student, it shows that the budget isn’t there to support the student but to support the institution. When an institution cuts student support services, it also indicates that it is not student-based but budget-based.
It’s essential that institutions make their student’s well-being and academic success a need and not a want. Cutting support services and decreasing the number of capable faculty and staff members who can assist students will quickly impact how quickly they can be assisted. From what I have found online and from our reading, budget models can be seen as either static, extreme, manipulatable by external stakeholders, or too vague. All articles recommend combining the models to cover weaknesses and enhance positives.
Do you agree that most universities in the face of a pandemic have revealed their budget was reactive and not proactive? Dr. Hamluk mentioned in the first discussion of how "departments would spend down their surpluses at the end of the year", which indicates that money was overbudgeted for the planned "needs". The overbudgeted amount could have gone to student support services OR to increasing the reservoir of funds the institution has in case another pandemic or funding cut occurs. Do you think departments should be penalized to ensure this doesn't occur?
Barr, M. J., & McClellan, G. S. (2018). Budgets and financial management in higher education. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, A Wiley Brand.
Masterson, K., & Mitchell, M. (2016). Funding Down, Tuition Up. Retrieved 29 September 2020, from https://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/funding-down-tuition-up
Yuen, V. (2020). Mounting Peril for Public Higher Education During the Coronavirus Pandemic - Center for American Progress. Retrieved 29 September 2020, from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education-postsecondary/reports/2020/06/11/485963/mounting-peril-public-higher-education-coronavirus-pandemic/
Crystal Discussion:
Every institution has things that are given priorities or more emphasis. These are the things that are more important in that institution. The preferences are considered more during the allocations of resources during the budgeting. Institutions have different things that are termed significant according to how it's managed or the services it offers. The priorities given to some things in an institution directly impact the budget allocated for progress. The financial board of an institution identifies things that need more attention and allocate funds to them accordingly. This discussion shows how an institution's priorities affect the budget and a selected budget allocation model's effect on achieving the priorities.
The budget of an institution is termed as the institution's expenditures and revenue sources. The revenue sources provide funds for budget operation. The largest part of the budget is allocated to the core activities of any given institution (Pullman & Wikoff, 2017). The activities include; administrative support services, computer services, building, libraries, maintenance services, etc. For example, 70% of Florida State University's budget is allocated to instruction and research. The mainly prioritized activities slice the largest part of the budget of any institution. Giving priorities to some things in an institution leads to making the budget flexible. The flexibility of allocating funds to different projects or activities is essential to facilitate the completion of critical tasks at the moment. Due to these priorities, many institutions apply unrestricted operating budgets in place. Preferences lead to incremental of an operating budget of an institution (Pullman & Wikoff, 2017). When the budget is prepared, all consideration of the institution's activities is considered. The total funds to facilitate the projects are calculated, and if there are additional funds required, a request is made to the accounting department for more. This is called incremental budgeting.
Priorities are the driving factor for any campus. During the preparation of campus budgets, faculty-student leaders and dean make a budget that includes all preferences; the funds are exhausted to strengthening and expanding academic resources. The most critical requirements for academic progression are given more weight to facilitate the campus's good running (Alahmadi & Tabrizi, 2019). The budget offers a large portion to sustain the practical programs and initiatives needed at the moment or that are more influential.
The model of budget allocation has a contributing factor to whether all priorities will be facilitated. The model selected to affect the way the flexibility of the budget is provided. The budget operating model of the campus is performance-based. It allows how many are used to be translated into results. The more effective projects or activities are given more emphasis. It determines whether all campus priorities will be facilitated as their performance is linked to the products they offer.
Budget allocations are a contributing factor to facilitating all priorities on the campus (Alahmadi & Tabrizi, 2019). The budget determines whether all activities and programs will receive enough funds to be achieved. The budget prepared needs to be flexible to emphasize the urgent programs that need to be completed. The number of funds to be budgeted also determines the achievement of priorities.
Institutional priorities should be given more weight during budget allocation. It has a great advantage to meet the campus's crucial requirements first as it facilitates the development and shift running of the institution. The budget allocation model should be flexible to incorporate changes in a case where essential programs to be facilitated arise.
References
Alahmadi, H., & Tabrizi, S. (2019). School Budgeting Planning: Selecting the Most Effective Budget Plan for Ontario’s Public Schools.
Pullman, M., & Wikoff, R. (2017). Institutional sustainable purchasing priorities. International Journal of Operations & Production Management.