Higher Education, Fiscal Administration, and Budgeting by Serna Gabriel R.;Weiler Spencer C.; & Spencer C. Weiler

Author:Serna, Gabriel R.;Weiler, Spencer C.; & Spencer C. Weiler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Incorporated

RESPONDING DURING THE BUDGET PROCESS

There are obviously varied responses to changes that occur during the budget process and cycle. However, before responding leaders overseeing budgets should have clearly defined answers to the following questions prior to having to increase or decrease a budget:

1.What principles guide your decision-making process when developing a budget?

2.What would you not change in a departmental, office, or institutional budget under any circumstance? Why?

3.What would you be willing to add to or cut from a budget? Why?

Because budget philosophy is central to the resource allocation process, an explicit statement or understanding of the principles undergirding decision-making will help make the budget allocation process much easier. This means that before the budget process gets under way, the budget manager should consider which principles will guide decision-making. In higher education this task is not a simple one.

For example, multiple criteria could be used to make a fiscal decision such as: do we wish our decisions to result in equal, equitable, efficient, or some other result? Do we wish for some combination of these? If so, which principles are most important, and how do we compare alternatives? These are just a few questions that might arise as the budget manager makes decisions or compares budgetary outcomes.

The next discussion point should center on the institution’s vision statement, mission statement, and goals. In other words, based on the goals of the institution, what are some things that we are unwilling to change or give up? As the budget is the physical representation of the institution’s objectives, knowing the answers, or at least considering them, will certainly help make for a smoother budget process.

In lean times, across the board cuts might be considered as part of the process or in times of plenty across the board increases. What arises then is a concern with whether the mission and values of the institution are truly reflected in the budget process and the resulting document. That is to say, clear articulation of why certain resource allocation decisions make sense based on the goals and objectives of the college or university can significantly lighten the workload related to fiscal administration.

One sage piece of advice offered by budget and planning scholars (Barr & McClellan, 2011; Goldstein, 2012) is that regardless of the choices to be made, the human costs and impacts on employee and institutional morale that these decisions engender should always be considered.

Finally, the third point is deciding what the institution is willing to change. While the second and third points may seem redundant, the truth is that providing information on both budgetary decisions that will not change and those that will can provide room for compromise. For example, assume that the core mission of an institution is engineering education. Then perhaps there is a strong interest in maintaining funding to engineering and math programs.

In the same institution, assume that new cost-savings have arisen and that faculty wages have remained frozen for a few years. While the institution might be unwilling to consider cuts to the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.