Committee on Budget Advisement Minutes for October 25, 2018

The Academic Senate Committee on Committee on Budget Advisement met on Thursday, October 25, 2018

Committee Members in Attendance:

Members: Philip Pecorino, Stephen Dahlke, David Lieberman

Guests: VP William Faulkner, Marc Carpentier

Business:

The meeting was called to order at 9am

1. Attendance was taken
2. Agenda was approved
3. Minutes of meeting 5-23-2018 were approved
4. Report from College’s chief officer for Finance and Administration: Vice President William Faulkner
5. It was agreed that his office would regularly send the Committee:

the Quarterly Reports on the College Financial Plan

the Student Tech Fee Plan and expenditures

Faculty Travel Resources and distribution over the last three years

1. Review of FY2019 College Financial Plan was performed
2. Review of 2017-2018 Year End Financial Report-not available but will be sent when it is
3. Setting the times for the meetings of the committee each year

• First meeting on the first weekday before the start of the Fall semester
• Late February or early March
• May

1. Agenda items for the future meetings of the Committee
2. Faculty Travel Resources and distribution over the last three years
3. College Request for the Surplus Funds of the AEC
4. Old Business
5. New Business

There was a discussion of the new BOT requirement that the College send a request for specific use of the surplus funds to the College AEC.

There was an examination of an analysis of the costs of Faculty Fellowship Leaves

From: Faulkner, William
Sent: Sunday, February 10, 2019 4:19 PM
To: Pecorino, Philip <[email protected]>; Lieberman, David H. <[email protected]>; Kuszai, Joel <[email protected]>; Dahlke, Steven <[email protected]>; Chan, Ronald <[email protected]>
Subject: Academic Senate Committee on Budget Advisement Update on FY18 and Mid-year FY19

​

Dear colleagues:

Attached for your review is a copy of the City University Budget Office Mid-Year Report for Queensborough Community College—the full report for all the colleges is available on the University web site. I have included the report’s summary executive narrative indicating notable trends the University is experiencing overall. The most notable trend affecting QCC is the downward trend of Community College enrollment-which has come to fruition with the Spring semester enrollment cycle now down by approximately 6%.

Please note that this report compares the final results of the college’s FY18 (year ended June 2018) to the status of QCC mid-year FY. When reviewing QCC status at the mid-year point, we reduced our revenue target by $255K to account for what we believed would be a slight decline in enrollment. In fact, we now expect revenue to be lower, slightly offset with savings from reduced costs due to the lower enrollment. 

This will impact projected revenue that supports the College’s operating budget, and a review is underway of all FY19 planned Personnel (PS) and Other Then Personal Services (OTPS) expenditures. Preparations for the Resource Allocation Planning cycle for Fiscal Year 2020 will begin earlier than in recent years, and will be driven to provide as much flexibility in planning next year’s budget as possible. While this is a serious challenge requiring a disciplined and focused budget review, the college is prepared to meet its overall budget obligations due to our past prudent management of available resources and reserves.​

I look forward to meeting and discussing the result and your questions.

Regards,

Bill

William V. Faulkner
Vice President for Finance & Administration
Queensborough Community College
222-05 56th Ave, Bayside, NY 11364
718-631-62

RESOLUTION

CUNY University Faculty Senate

Draft for Review by BAC – Version 4

WHEREAS since its founding, CUNY has served as a vehicle of upward mobility for all New Yorkers, including those from low-income families, underrepresented groups and immigrant communities. CUNY’s diverse faculty provides quality instruction, workforce training and research in the broad and ever-expanding domains of knowledge that prepare them for successful futures. The University has conferred more than 1.3 million degrees in the past 45 years, and surveys indicate that more than three-quarters of its graduates remain in the city. CUNY colleges account for more than a third of the business and finance degrees awarded by New York City institutions, about one-third of the city’s public school teachers and a high percentage of the nurses and health and science technicians employed by local medical facilities. The University produces hundreds of computer scientists and engineering professionals each year, and those numbers have risen sharply in the last five years, and

 

WHEREAS the funding of the core operating budgets for SUNY and CUNY has  increasingly relied over the last decade on tuition and fees, which—while New York’s neediest students have been protected due to the generous Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), SUNY/CUNY Supplemental TAP Awards, and the first-in-the-nation Excelsior Scholarship Program—has exacerbated both financial pressure on students and their families and the student-debt crisis in New York, despite SUNY and CUNY having among the lowest tuition and fees in the nation, and

WHEREAS a large portion of CUNY’s 27 million square feet of owned space is at least half a century old. Investments are needed to extend the life of facilities, meet safety and code requirements, improve energy conservation and support academic programs and services, and

 

WHEREAS the Legislature and Governor have an historic opportunity and responsibility during this budget process to make New York State a national leader in sustainably and equitably funding its public university systems.

RESOLUTION:

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the CUNY University Faculty Senate urge the members of the New York State Legislature and Governor Cuomo to support CUNY by funding the following operating budget priorities: 

• Mandatory Cost Increases: The University’s budget request seeks $93.9 million at the senior colleges for contractually required incremental salary increases, fringe benefit expenses and building rental and energy cost increases.

 

• TAP Tuition Credit/TAP Gap Parity: For students who receive full TAP awards, CUNY is required legally to cap tuition at the TAP award level. This creates a “TAP Gap” for our senior colleges, which will grow to about $85 million in FY2020.  CUNY is seeking $20 million per year for the next four years to help close this gap.  In addition, colleges with higher percentages of students that receive TAP generate less revenue than those colleges with higher student income levels, and therefore are affected disproportionately by this requirement.  The University requests $4.9 million for these specific campuses in order to provide TAP Gap parity.

 

• Community College Base Aid - $250 per FTE: CUNY requests an increase in community college funding by $250 per student FTE. Additional funding generated by this increase would be used to support the strategic goals to bolster student success, as well as keep tuition levels flat.

 

• New Full-Time Faculty / Diversifying CUNY’s Faculty: CUNY requests funding to hire 200 new faculty per year to increase the diversity of its faculty and ensure excellence in teaching and research.

 

• College Completion Programs: The University seeks strategic investments to expand upon proven approaches that advance student academic success and degree completion, including our signature ASAP student success program for associate degree students; its new four-year counterpart, Accelerate, Complete and Engage (ACE), as well as Early College collaborations with the NYC Department of Education.

 

• Supporting Needs of Students: Funding is needed so that students do not become sidetracked in their academic pursuits by issues like food and housing insecurity, transportation costs, unmet mental and physical health needs, the demands of childcare and other basic needs.

 

• CUNY Works: This is a set of integrated, bold new steps to ensure our students are well-positioned to thrive in today’s changing world of work. 

 

• CUNY School of Medicine at City College: The establishment of a full medical school requires a significant commitment of resources dedicated to personnel and facilities in order to comply with the requirements of the national accrediting body, the Liaison Committee for Medical Education (LCME). NYS provides $40,000 per student for SUNY medical school students and CUNY is requesting equivalent funding.

 

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED  that the CUNY University Faculty Senate joins the SUNY Faculty Senate to support a sustainable commitment to fiscal maintenance of effort for SUNY and CUNY, to assure funding for mandatory operating cost increases—such as utilities, building rentals, equipment and supplies, ongoing collective bargaining costs, and tuition increases that widen the TAP gap.

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the CUNY University Faculty Senate urges the members of the New York State Legislature and Governor Cuomo to support CUNY by funding $570 million, for CUNY-Wide Senior Colleges, Capital Infrastructure and Equipment. Funding requested to continue to address deferred maintenance at senior colleges, as identified in CUNY’s State of Good Repair Analyses. CUNY’s state-of-good-repair program aims to undertake the work necessary to keep buildings open and infrastructure operating in support of its educational mission.

THEREFORE BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the CUNY University Faculty Senate urges the members of the New York State Legislature and Governor Cuomo to support CUNY by funding our Five-Year Capital Plan for Fiscal Year FY 2019-20 through FY 2023-24 is $6.2 billion: $4.7 billion is for the senior colleges, professional and graduate schools, and $1.5 billion, to be matched by the City of New York,  is for the community colleges. Projects originate from CUNY-approved campus master plans and address space deficits on campus.

 

FINALLY BE IT RESOLVED that the CUNY University Faculty Senate calls on all Senators to share this resolution with their campus governance bodies and work with their Campus Governance Leader and others to pass campus governance body resolutions aligned with ours, which include encouragement of all students, alumni, donors, and current and former workers at their institution to reach out to the Governor and their representatives in the New York State Legislature and, as fellow citizens or residents of New York and/or supporters of public higher education, urge them to enact a budget that truly supports and advances our core academic missions.

Best Practices for Budget Consultations

Draft February 15, 2019

An important summer activity in the CUNY budget cycle is the development, by each campus, of a financial plan. These plans identify the revenues that each campus expects to receive, including targets for tuition and fee revenues. The plans then identify how the funds are to be spent to support campus programs and operations including the salaries of faculty and staff. The plans are eventually submitted for approval by the University Budget Office.

The Budget Office issues a memorandum of Financial Plan instructions to the campuses, including the requirement that the plans be fiscally balanced (spending cannot exceed available funds) and that the Presidents of each campus must provide for consultations with elected student and faculty leaders. As an elected faculty leader you will be invited for these consultations and we encourage you to fully participate.

This statement describes best practices by faculty governance leaders for these consultations.

1.         Advance Planning

During the spring semester, identify the faculty governance leaders who will be participating in the consultations. It may also be important to determine the availabilities of participating faculty governance leaders if the consultations take place during the summer. Then clarify with your campus administration their expectations for the consultations.

If their approach is unsatisfactory, explain the situation to UFS leaders who may be able to assist you. A goal is to resolve conflicting expectations in advance.

2.         Financial Document Archive

A faculty member should be designated to maintain a Financial Document Archive so that there is a central resource used by faculty governance leaders to access documents that have already been provided, as well as to access copies of similar documents from prior years.

Documents to consider for archiving include:

• The latest draft financial plan or drafts of the plan, including the supporting tables;
• A multi-year table of full-time positions, identifying faculty lines separately from other positions;
• Your campus Auxiliary Enterprise Corporation budget, recent annual financial statement, bylaws, and most recent IRS 990 return.[1]
• Your campus foundation budget, recent annual financial statement, bylaws, and most recent IRS 990 return.
• Your campus student activities corporation budget, recent annual financial statement, bylaws, and most recent IRS 990 return.
• Any other supporting entity budget, bylaws, and most recent IRS 990 return. These are separate corporations that in some campuses and included in the auxiliary enterprise corporation and in some campuses are separate, like performing arts centers or child care centers.
• Reports of allocations of indirect funds associated with your campus from the Research Foundation;
• Budgets and financial reports for any differential tuitions, excellence fees and program supplement fees that are charged at your campus;
• The facilities and capital projects plan for your campus;
• The requests for city council Resolution A funds for capital projects.

It is also reasonable to ask for a copy of the Financial Plan once it is submitted and approved.

2.         Early Consultations

Ideally, consultations should also take place during the spring semester, so that once the allocation memorandum arrives from CUNY, final adjustments are being made to a general plan worked out in advance. Proposals and recommendations presented during the spring semester will have more influence than proposals and recommendations presented just before the financial Plan is submitted.

3.         Documents to Request

While you should have many documents in your archive, it is reasonable for you to ask for documents to review immediately in advance of the consultations. Documents to consider requesting include:

• The latest draft financial plan or drafts of the key tables;
• An updated multi-year table of full-time positions, identifying faculty lines separately from other positions;
• Updates of the budgets and financial statements of your campus corporations;
• Updates of reports of allocations of indirect funds associated with your campus from the Research Foundation;
• The facilities and capital projects plan for your campus;
• The requests for city council Resolution A funds for capital projects.

It is also reasonable to ask for a copy of the Financial Plan once it is submitted and approved.

4.         Issues to Consider

As you review and discuss the documents, consider the following issues:

• Are the student admissions and enrollment projections reasonable?
• Have numbers of faculty lines been increasing in proportion to enrollment?
• Are non-faculty positions growing at a rate that exceeds the growth of tenure-track faculty positions? Is there a rationale for the difference in growth?
• What are the plans for faculty and academic support staff in the “multi-year hiring” section of the financial plan.
• How are the Auxiliary Enterprise Corporation surplus funds, and the surplus funds of related corporate entities, being expended to support the college?
• How are campus foundation funds being expended to support the college? What policy is applied to determine the proportion of funds to be expended?
• How are facility maintenance and space issues being addressed?
• What is the CUTRA surplus at the start of the fiscal year, and what CUTRA balance is anticipated at the end of the fiscal year?
• If there are differential tuitions, excellence fees and program supplement fees that are charged at your campus, what evidence is available that the funds are expended in accord with the requirements exacted with the tuitions and fees were established?

It is probably impractical to consider all of these issues on one meeting, but additional meetings should be scheduled during the academic year to go over these topics.

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