CAPRA Minutes- 10/4/13

Attendance: Dale Deutsch, Debra Dwyer, Bill Godfrey, Norm Goodman, Gene Katz, Maria Ryan, Chong Zhang

Most of the meeting was taken up with a discussion of the Proposed Budget model.

1. Some concern had been expressed that at the end of the day, there would be no change from the current model and that there were so many undecided issues in the proposed Budget Model, that, if the higher administration made all the decisions, we could, indeed, end up where we are now.

2. The alternate view was expressed that it was up to the faculty to make sure that real change happened.

3. Deb Dwyer, who is a member of the Budget and Finance Committee, then gave a brief history of the Committee’s activities.
a) The original charge was to develop an RCM budget model, but, when the committee presented such a model, the higher administration was very unhappy with it, and told the committee to start again.
b) The committee then came up with a hybrid model, part RCM (Responsibility Centered Management) and part SBP (Strategic Budget Process). The higher administration was much happier with that plan, and it is the basis of the current Proposed Budget model.

4. The most important feature of the hybrid model was that it still provided the transparency that was essential if any real change was going to happen. There was a concern, however, about the role that the faculty would have in decision making, and that the lack of a campus strategic plan would negatively impact the implementation of the plan.

5. The point was made that the budgeting process in the hybrid plan begins with each Vice Presidential area having a “base budget” which is the same as the current budget, and that the new hybrid plan is only concerned with the distribution of “new dollars”. The Provost had argued that in looking over departmental budgets he had found all sorts of “special deals”, and he wanted the new process to do away with them. But it appears that in starting with the current “base budget”, we are, in fact, fixing those inequities in stone, and changes will only be made at the margins.

6) The committee then reviewed the comments that members had sent to Norm. Deb took notes of these comments and the discussion, from which she and Norm will draft a report to be sent to the members of CAPRA for review before being sent on to Dennis Assanis and Mark Maciulaitis as CAPRA’s comments and suggestions about the proposed new budget model