Your feedback: Budget committee responds to student consultations

Dal’s annual operating budget process is getting closer to its end.

Each year, the Budget Advisory Committee (BAC) makes recommendations on how Dal’s revenue — largely from the government grant and student tuition — will be spent to cover expenses in the coming year.

At the next two Board of Governors meetings, Board members will vote to approve key components of the BAC budget plan. First, at Tuesday’s meeting, will be the vote on tuition and fees for 2013-14, which have to be approved now so they can apply during the summer term. Then at its June meeting the Board will vote to approve the overall operating budget.

Carolyn Watters, vice-president academic and provost, and chair of the BAC, reached out to Dal News to share some thoughts about issues that arose through the BAC consultations this year and some ideas on continuing to improve the consultation process going forward.

The process thus far

The BAC issued two reports this year. Its January report identified the revenues and expenses as projected in late December, and its February report outlined a model that would provide a balanced budget, including tuition and fee recommendations.

Dal News: BACgrounder: What you need to know about the Dal Budget (Jan. 17)
Full report: Budget Advisory Committee Report XLIX (Jan. 10)

Dal News: Budget update: An interview with Carolyn Watters (Feb. 15)

Dal News: Budget Advisory Committee weighs in on balancing the Dal Budget (Feb. 28)
Report: Fee Recommendations and Draft Tuition Policy (Feb. 27)
Full report: Budget Advisory Committee Report L (Feb. 27)

Following the release of each report, the BAC answered questions and collected feedback from the Dal community. This year, for the first time, Dr. Watters and BAC members met with key groups across the university following the BAC’s first report, hosting a live webinar with students, providing a session with DSU council and inviting suggestions and feedback by email. Then in March, Dr. Watters and members of the BAC hosted a number of in-person consultations about the budget recommendations across campus: three sessions for students (two in Halifax, one in Truro) and meetings with the DSU council and other societies who asked for her time. Feedback was also invited by email from students, staff and faculty.

“We had lots of great feedback from those who came out to our sessions and through email, and we’re continuing to reflect on how we can work with the student associations to improve how students can share their ideas and contribute to the process,” says Dr. Watters.

Responding to feedback and issues

Dr. Watters says key BAC recommendations — like not raising tuition beyond 3% in exempted areas like medicine, law and dentistry, or the decision to make use of reserve funds to limit budget cuts this year — reflect what its members heard from students and the rest of the Dal community.

“We know tuition increases and budget cuts aren’t anyone’s first choice in balancing an operating budget, and in an ideal funding world neither would be necessary,” says Dr. Watters. “Provincial government funding for universities has been cut by a combined 10% over the past three years and costs continue to rise. Our challenge is to address that reality in a way that limits the impact on the classroom and services to our students.”

Aware of the government’s stated plan to pull 10% from university grants over the past three years, the Deans and units have prepared budgets for each of those years that included 3% cuts to their projections. For the past several years, the BAC model has had to apply budget reductions across the university: every Faculty and operating unit has been asked to find savings, from the President’s Office through the Faculties and operational units. Because of the decentralized budget management at Dalhousie, each unit decides how to find those savings.

One piece of feedback Dr. Watters heard from students was a desire for more detail on just what’s involved in a 3.5% reduction: particularly, how the individual Faculties will be managing that cut. The BAC has compiled a summary from the Faculties (read the document here). Next year this information will be shared with the community much earlier in the process.

Another common theme for students was clarity on the multi-year cost of their education up front, including tuition, ancillary and auxiliary fees. The BAC has asked the Registrar’s Office to include projected estimates, where known, for tuition and fees in a student’s package of acceptance to the university.

Other topics

Students asked a range of questions at the consultations about a number of other areas of the budget:

Recruitment: Students were keen to know how the university plans to keep its enrolment numbers strong to support the budget. “While the specific details of our full recruitment plan are confidential for competitive reasons, there are a number of key pillars,” says Dr. Watters. “We’re targeting western Canada and international markets as key growth areas, as well as focusing efforts on certain academic programs with growth potential like engineering, arts and ocean sciences — though not to the exclusion of our other programs. We’ll also be looking to make more strategic use of our scholarships and bursaries.”

Advocacy: Students wanted to know about Dal’s priorities in its efforts to acquire funding from the province. You can learn more about the subject in this interview with President Tom Traves.

Buildings: The university has a number of building projects underway, and there were questions about how those impact the operating budget. “Funding for new buildings comes from a variety of sources, and doesn’t hugely impact the operating budget,” says Dr. Watters. “We heard quite often the concern that support for infrastructure is at the expense of support for academics, but I cannot imagine coping with the additional 25% students coming to Dal over the past 10 years with the classrooms, labs, and buildings on the campus at that time. The building projects are chosen carefully by the Board in response to pressing current needs to support academic programs, students and faculty. Many buildings, like residences, are self-financing and other buildings are funded largely by government grants, donors and in some cases mortgages. Roughly 1.2% of our operating budget is spent on debt servicing for academic, teaching and research facilities – we feel that’s good value for the money.”

Preparation: “I think a lot of people were surprised to see that $17.6 number being shared in January,” says Dr. Watters. “But every year, at that stage in our budget process, we share the potential difference in revenue and expected expenses – when your costs go up and your revenues are cut, this is what happens. This year’s number was larger, certainly, than last year but not a surprise. The budget planning with our Faculties and units is based on a 3% reduction, so limiting the cut to 3.5% keeps things well in line with our planning.”

“There are no easy choices in budget season,” she adds. “The more feedback we get and the earlier we can identify issues that are confusing, the more insight we have into how to balance interests in making those decisions. So we welcome student comments and feedback and we consider each suggestion the best we can.”