Faculty Senate Budget and 27 April 2005

Present: H. Chang, S. Kurth, S. McMillan, J. Nolt, G. Reed, and C. White Absent: D. Barlow, B. Dewey, L. Gross, N. Schrick, P. Scheurer, and J. Whelan

Meeting called to order at 3:35

I Approval of minutes

Kurth moved that the minutes be accepted as amended, second by Reed, unanimously approved.

A McMillan reported that the bulk of the system hearings were relatively uneventful. S. Davis has created a new planning form that was used in some of the hearings. It includes estimates of needs for the next three years. Areas that have dual reporting to campus and system (e.g. IT, development, operations) presented substantially similar system and campus materials.

B White reported on the Athletics hearing. It was somewhat bizarre with the faculty representatives asking questions and both athletics and system leaders justifying the budget. The money being "borrowed" to buy out Buzz Petersen was positioned as a "gentleman's agreement." No clear evidence was shown for where that money would come from nor how (or at what rate) it would be repaid. Gross pointed out the lack of reserve funds and the potential for future similar financial problems arising for the athletics unit. The specifics of this loan and how it is managed need to be a top priority for the faculty senate budget and planning committee in the fall.

C White also reported on the Chancellor's budget and planning meeting that was held on 18 April 2005. At that meeting, the chancellor's staff was preparing for its system hearing (previously unannounced) which was held later that afternoon. No faculty members were able to attend that hearing. And, in fact, system leaders were all either late or absent at the hearing. This seems to signal possible problems. Crabtree reported at the morning meeting that budget entity 03 (the so-called big orange) was being dissolved and that dual-reporting relationships would be eliminated. It was his understanding that this would give MORE control to the campus.

D The committee discussed possible revisions for the budget hearing process in the future. We agreed that there needs to be more accountability of expenditures. A major overhaul to the process is probably in order and the committee would welcome the opportunity to participate in reshaping the budget hearings. E Kurth and White also reported on a meeting regarding reporting of gender and salary data. The agreement has been made to do dual reporting for the next two years using both the "traditional" reporting measures and new measures that have been proposed by Mayhew.

A The committee reviewed the final report prepared earlier by McMillan. No need for changes was identified. The report will stand as written in the Faculty Senate records.

B The committee discussed priorities for next year. We agreed that the committee next fall should review all of the goals set out for this year and identify those that are most appropriate to pursue for the future. We also talked about the need for the committee to be more engaged in the planning process--particularly as it applies to facilities and the "greening" of the campus. We also discussed the need for benchmarking budget-related criteria (e.g. how much of the budget actually goes to the delivery of instruction) to ensure that the dollars allocated to the campus are being spent reasonably. Another planning concern is to monitor is the effect of the new larger incoming classes as the move into majors.

C The committee agreed that concerns over items covered in the old business section above should not be left to lie fallow over the summer. McMillan agreed to draft a letter to President Petersen addressing the athletics "loan" and general concerns regarding system/campus relationships in areas such as IT and development. She will circulate that letter by e-mail to committee members. The letter will need to be sent no later than Monday, 25 April. The letter will also ask for a meeting with Petersen to discuss these matters. If such a meeting is arranged, all committee members will be notified of time and place and all are encouraged to attend.

D White nominated McMillan to serve as committee chair for the 2005-2005 academic year. McMillan accepted the nomination. No other nominations were put forward. The committee voted unanimously in favor of McMillan as chair.

Kurth moved that the minutes be accepted as amended, second by Reed, unanimously approved.

A. A committee report had been prepared and sent to Chancellor Crabtree prior to the meeting. Crabtree noted that the document focused primarily on process and asked that he be allowed to discuss priorities with the faculty senate budget committee.

B In short, the university needs about $15 million in new money to cover a variety of costs ranging from student scholarships to increases in utilities.

C Crabtree identified the following as key priorities: delivery of instruction, fixed costs, operating, salaries, program improvements, and scholarships. Committee members agreed that all of these are important priorities that need to be funded.

D Crabtree suggested that in future years, public budget hearings may not be as valuable as "hard nosed" one-on-one meetings with the deans followed up with a summary session that is open and widely accessible--possibly via Web cast.

A Mike Hamilton's reply to the committee's request for a change to the VASF name was discussed. We agreed to let the matter rest for the time being. However, we will continue to monitor the mater and possibly next fall to do some message testing of advertising that is being run in support of the VASF.

B Faculty salary data were discussed and some disparities noted. We also discussed future actions that could be taken related to this data. For example, the committee might want to consider developing some guidelines on philosophy of distribution of merit money.

C Kurth reported that work is ongoing on reporting of gender data. The committee will not attempt to further address this issue in this academic year, but it is something to keep on the agenda for future years.

A The faculty senate voted to approve a name change. We are now the "budget and planning" committee. More attention needs to be given to planning in the future.

B The senate also voted to increase the size of the committee to 10 faculty members. McMillan introduced the two new members: John Nolt and Candace White.

C The committee reviewed system budget hearings. McMillan noted that she could attend mot sessions. Kurth volunteered to attend the session scheduled for April 19 at 4:00. Gross has been invited to attend the athletics session on April 22. All members are encouraged to attend as many of the sessions as possible

D McMillan noted that the committee elects its own chair at the final session of the spring semester. She encouraged all members to consider serving in that role.

E The committee discussed scheduling of the final session. April 11 (the currently scheduled date) is too soon for a variety of reasons. McMillan agreed to poll members for a revised schedule. See scheduling note below.

1. SPEAK made a presentation on the need for funding a clean energy initiative. Students will work with P. Scheurer on adding an allocation to the facilities fee.
   
   
2. IT is instituting a security program. February will be IT security month on campus. Brice Bible will make a presentation at the Faculty Senate meeting.
   
   
3. Budget instructions were presented, discussed, and refined.
   
   
4. Survey of earned doctorates shows that when compared to comparable institutions UT is significantly below average in awarding degrees in the physical sciences, mathematics, and life sciences, and above average in awarding doctorates in social sciences, education, and professional areas. This despite significant investment in "big science." This may be an area for future consideration in planning.
   
   
5. Data show wide disparities in staff availability across colleges and departments. Law has 1.57 FTE faculty members for each staff position. Nursing is at the opposite extreme with 5.16 FTE faculty for each staff position. But within departments, some of the hardest hit are Advertising/Public Relations, English, History, Modern Foreign Languages, Political Sciences, and Theater (all with ratios of 12 or more). Analysis includes all faculty and instructors as well as all exempt and non-exempt staff.
   
   
6. Alan Chesney reviewed the draft performance review forms that will be used for review of all staff and faculty positions. These will be fairly simple forms that can be supplemented by additional documentation as desired.
   
   

1. Living Wage Task Force will update an earlier living wage study.
   
   
2. Commission on Women's study shows that salaries for faculty women are now where those for men were ten years ago.The committee agreed that the issue of gender disparity in salaries requires follow-up. This is appropriately addressed at the Dean level. S. Kurth agreed to work with the Commission on Women to get this item on the agenda for an upcoming Dean's Council.<

1. Review the portion of the Dean's reports that reviews goals that were set for last year and progress on those goals. If the current budget report does reflect those goals, be prepared to ask Deans for an explanation.
   
   
2. While the primary focus of the Deans may be on how to allocate scarce resources, we agreed that the following question (or some slight variation thereof) is "fair" to ask of all deans and should help bring some focus to issues of concern to all faculty: "How does your budget proposal support the needs of the faculty in your College?"

A Jay Whelan was introduced as the new member of the faculty senate budget committee. He has served on the committee in the past and is in a position to be "up to speed" quickly on budget issues as budget hearings begin.

B McMillan reported on recent items from the Executive Planning and budget committee:

-SPEAK made a presentation on the need for funding a clean energy initiative. Students will work with P. Scheurer on adding an allocation to the facilities fee.

-IT is instituting a security program. February will be IT security month on campus. Brice Bible will make a presentation at the Faculty Senate meeting.

-Budget instructions were presented, discussed, and refined.

-Survey of earned doctorates shows that when compared to comparable institutions UT is significantly below average in awarding degrees in the physical sciences, mathematics, and life sciences, and above average in awarding doctorates in social sciences, education, and professional areas. This despite significant investment in "big science." This may be an area for future consideration in planning.

-Data show wide disparities in staff availability across colleges and departments. Law has 1.57 FTE faculty members for each staff position. Nursing is at the opposite extreme with 5.16 FTE faculty for each staff position. But within departments, some of the hardest hit are Advertising/Public Relations, English, History, Modern Foreign Languages, Political Sciences, and Theater (all with ratios of 12 or more). Analysis includes all faculty and instructors as well as all exempt and non-exempt staff.

-Alan Chesney reviewed the draft performance review forms that will be used for review of all staff and faculty positions. These will be fairly simple forms that can be supplemented by additional documentation as desired.

C McMillan also reported on two items from the Faculty Senate Executive Committee.

-Living Wage Task Force will update an earlier living wage study.

-Commission on Women study shows that salaries for faculty women are now where those for men were ten years ago.

The committee agreed that the issue of gender disparity in salaries requires follow-up. This is appropriately addressed at the Dean level. S. Kurth agreed to work with the Commission on Women to get this item on the agenda for an upcoming Dean's Council.

A The proposed bylaws change for the committee was approved by the Faculty Senate Executive Committee with one minor addition--specification that the new chair would be selected by the committee in its last meeting of the spring semester.

B The Athletics Committee will review the VASF letter at its meeting on January 25. The Budget Committee agreed that the letter should go to Petersen regardless of Athletics Committee action. If Athletics does not want to be named, we will simply remove them from the letter and send it on our own. McMillan will follow-up by e-mail after receiving a report from the Athletics Committee.

A Committee members identified times that they can commit to attending the budget hearings. A schedule is available as a separate file. All members are encouraged to attend as many sessions as possible.

B The committee agreed on the following primary focus for our participation in hearings:

-Review the portion of the Dean's reports that reviews goals that were set for last year and progress on those goals. If the current budget report does reflect those goals, be prepared to ask Deans for an explanation.

-While the primary focus of the Deans may be on how to allocate scarce resources, we agreed that the following question (or some slight variation thereof) is "fair" to ask of all deans and should help bring some focus to issues of concern to all faculty: "How does your budget proposal support the needs of the faculty in your College?"

C In addition to the above items, committee members who are attending sessions should look for any specific items in the Dean's reports that have the potential to impact on faculty and be prepared to question Deans on those issues.

D We will ask that a link be created from the Faculty Senate Web site to the online versions of the reports prepared by the Deans. We will also provide brief summaries of how Deans responded to questions RE faculty issues. McMillan will be primarily responsible for preparing those summaries. Kurth and Reed agreed to provide summaries for sessions that they will attend when McMillan is unavailable. E In looking forward to future meetings, we agreed a primary focus of the 14 February meeting is to review budget materials that are available at that time (due date for Deans is 11 February). For the meeting on 28 March, a primary agenda item will be to recap the budget hearings and prepare feedback for possible revisions to future budget hearings.

A Gross reported that on Nov. 1, 2004 he met with the Vice Chancellor for Research, two Associate Vice Chancellors, several members of the research staff, and two IRIS Team members regarding reporting on R-accounts. In short, some improvements to the IRIS system have been made, but it is still less than completely desirable. One issue still to be resolved is the method of reporting to granting organizations when some personnel are on nine-month contracts and others are on 12-month contracts. The IRIS team is preparing training materials for PIs and bookkeepers.

B Gross also reported briefly on problems with grant-based employees not being able to "bank" leave. When they take accumulated leave or depart the University all of their unused leave is currently charged to the grants on which they are working at the time of their departure. This creates financial nightmares for primary investigators. Barlow reported that making adjustments to the system to allow for leave to be charged to multiple accounts is a top priority.

C Barlow reported that 30% of the F&A charges on grants will be returned to the colleges starting this fall. This is calculated on a rolling three-year average. Plans are to raise the percentage to 35% and finally 40%.

D Gross reported that the classroom upgrade committee would like to see a better accounting of how the facilities fee is being distributed. Barlow noted that those figures were available. She sent a spreadsheet by e-mail to the committee chair the morning after the meeting. A copy of the spreadsheet is attached.

E McMillan reported on the meeting of the Executive Budget and Planning Committee, which meet on 27 December 2004. Three items were discussed at that meeting:

1 Knoxville campus compensation policy (still in draft stage)

2 Scholarships--the university is over-committed to students who earned scholarships based on their ACT scores. Barlow added that scholarships currently account for about 7% of E&G spending. This is on par with the spending of peer institutions.

3 About $140,000 will be needed to update the mainframe to provide more power for the SIS upgrade.

4 McMillan reported on two items that have been discussed in the Faculty Senate Executive Committee. First, was the strategic plan that is available on the senate Web site. Second, was the need to expand the role of the budget committee. She presented the following proposed revision to the committee by-laws:

Budget and Planning Committee. Membership shall consist of eight ten faculty members appointed to two-year staggered terms. Ex-officio members shall include the Vice President of Chancellor for Budget and Finance and Vice President for Operations for the University. The committee shall elect the Chairperson for a one-year term.

The duties of the committee are: (1) to provide for campus-wide faculty input into the University budgeting and planning processes; (2) to encourage the use of faculty expertise in budget and planning matters; (3) to inform the faculty, through the Senate, concerning budget and planning matters. Both long-range and short-term aspects of its role will receive the committee's attention, including budget priorities, facilities, and THEC formulas.

The primary concern of the committee will be policy. The committee is not expected to become involved in detail and comprehensive investigations necessary as a basis for budget and planning decisions.

Gross moved that the changes be accepted as proposed, Chang offered a second to the motion. The committee voted unanimously to send the proposed changes forward to the Faculty Senate Executive Committee.

A The goals were accepted as presented in the minutes of the meeting of 13 September 2004.

B There was some discussion of the need to include development, and in particular the new capital campaign, as an issue to be tracked.

C As part of the new planning part of the committee's role, McMillan noted that we should work on communicating with faculty about priorities so that we can effectively monitor for and communicate about those priorities as part of the budget hearing process.

A Gross and McMillan reopened the discussion of the VASF name. The committee agreed that a letter should be sent to Petersen, as new president of the University. Because Petersen has made it clear that athletics will report to him, it is important that he understand the VASF issue and faculty concerns about the word "scholarship" when money is clearly being used for things other than scholarships.

The committee agreed that a joint letter should be sent from the Budget and Planning and Athletics committees of the faculty senate. Gross and McMillan will draft a letter and share it with the chair of the Athletics committee. We will get agreement on a basic message and will send copies to the Chancellor, Athletics Director, and Todd Diacon.

We also discussed the possibility of bringing a resolution to the Senate that addresses appropriate and inappropriate uses of the term scholarship. However, we considered that to be the second stage in a two-step process if the letter to Petersen does not result in positive action.

B Barlow reported that the Chancellor would like to send instructions in early December to Deans and others who will present at the budget hearings. The committee reviewed procedures that were put in place last year. Generally, there was agreement to duplicate the procedures this year. However, we also noted that Deans should be encouraged to prepare a brief flow chart that clearly shows income and expenditures. We also discussed the possibility of eliminating the questions of how the Deans would handle a cut or increase of XX%. Barlow reported that she is working on getting all of the budget documents on the Web for this year's hearings.

a. Make recommendations for improving the budget hearing process. Provide input on establishing standard policy for structure of hearings, information provided, and access to this information via the Web.

b. Provide input on budgeting processes outside of the formal hearing process through participation in the Executive Planning and Budget Committee.

c. Seek transparency in budget preparation and reporting so that faculty can clearly see the financial implications of program decisions (e.g. how much money was/wasn't saved through RRTF, evening school changes, etc. and how has "saved" money been reallocated).
d. Improve systems of communication so that the faculty has accurate and current information about budget-related decisions (e.g. faculty refresh program for personal computers).

a. Continue to make living/equitable wages for staff a priority.

b. Continue to encourage policies that will bring faculty salaries up to at least 90% of THEC peers and/or list of peers proposed by the Chancellor.

c. Work to encourage policies regarding potential redistribution of salary funds to units based on a rule other than a percentage of current pool.

d. Clarify VASF funding and communication about that funding.

e. Identify issues that have budget implications, but need to be addressed first as substantive issues (e.g. summer school) and work through the Executive Committee to direct those to appropriate Faculty Senate committees.

f. Work with members of the Executive Committee to identify other core issues that are important to faculty and that have budget implications. Track those issues as appropriate.

a. Conduct annual faculty salary survey.

b. Review data from the Delaware Study to assess the academic budgets.

c. Review UT Foundation budget and revenue flows.

d. Review UT Research Foundation budget and revenue flows.

e. Review Athletics budget and revenue flows.