MSU-BOZEMAN FACULTY COUNCIL MEETING MINUTES
October 18, 2000
PRESENT: Giroux for Sherwood, White, Peed, Linker, Leech, Benham,
Stewart, Larsen, Jost, Harkin, Nehrir, Mooney, Lefcort,
McClure, Lansverk, Levy, Bogar, Bond, Jelinski, Kirkpatrick,
McKinsey, Lynch, Fisher, Prawdzienski, Scott.
ABSENT: Young, Hatfield, Morrill, Miller, Anderson, Kommers, Howard,
McMahon, Locke, Butterfield, Griffith, Carlstrom.
The meeting was called to order by Chair Ron Larsen at 4:10 PM. It
was determined a quorum was present. The minutes of the October 4,
2000, meeting were approved as distributed.
Chair's report - Ron Larsen.
- Two Strategic Planning and Budget Committee (SPBC) working
groups are being organized. Faculty Council members are
encouraged to call the chair of one of the two and volunteer to
be part of the group. The groups and chairs are:
- Strategic Planning - Chair: Bruce McCleod (x4145)
- Enrollment and Enrollment Management - Chair: Sara Jayne
Steen (x3768)
- Geoffrey Gamble will be on campus full-time as MSU's President
beginning December 4.
- Ron has prepared a graph which shows general funding for
MSU-Boozeman as well as in-state and out-of-state tuition.
One-half of the tuition comes from out-of-state-students.
In-state tuition is growing linearly while out-of-state tuition
shows exponential growth. Until this past year, the university's
contingency fund was $200,000, equivalent to the tuition paid by
twenty out-of-state students. The contingency fund has been
doubled, but is still a small part of the budget.
- Candidates for Montana's seat in the U.S. House of
Representatives will debate this evening at 7 PM in 103 EPS. On
November 1, there will be a forum for local candidates for
Montana's legislature. One question to ask each of them is
whether they are in favor of the $500/student additional funding
for the university system proposed by the Commissioner's Office.
- Interim Provost Dave Dooley will attend Faculty Council on
October 25 to report on the status of SPBC and plans for it this
semester as well as on the reversion of faculty lines.
Background information for the two issues was distributed
(attached for members absent).
UGC Nominating Committee report.
- Donald Mathre's name was presented as a nominee for a faculty
position on the Athletics Committee. Jack Jelinski moved the
nomination be accepted by Faculty Council and forwarded to
President Roark for approval. The motion was seconded and
carried.
Faculty Affairs Committee report - David Scheerer.
- The Committee is continuing to review Faculty Council standing
committees for inclusion in the Faculty Handbook.
Working group on budget.
- It has been suggested this be called a "budget information
working group".
- During discussion, the following consensus was reached:
- The budget information working group will be organized
through University Governance Council rather than Faculty
Council, only.
- Overlap with the SPBC budget working group is desirable to
promote interchange of information.
- Nominations for membership should be presented to UGC
Steering Committee and should include faculty and contract
professional employees (some of them from SPBC, if
possible), and members of the administration. The working
group will be established by UGC Steering Committee from the
nominations received. The group should be as inclusive as
possible, without becoming too large to do its work.
- The charge is to find a comprehensible way to present
MSU's budget and to identify the major issues that make the
budget planning process such a problem. The group will
report its results to University Governance Council, SPBC,
the administration, and the public.
- The working group is not intended to work toward
resolution of the issues that make the budget so difficult
to understand and budget planning problematic but to
identify what these issues are. This working group will
move toward making greater transparency in the budget and
the budgeting process. (Working groups are intended to have
a very narrowly defined scope and short time frame.
Additional working groups may be created to push the work
forward.)
- The work of this group should be completed by the end of
Fall Semester.
- Jack Jelinski moved the above-mentioned points of agreement be
accepted. The motion was seconded and carried.
Discussion with Vice President for Administration and Finance Tom
Stump.
- Topics the Vice President was asked to address include: using
the current authorization by the legislature to award faculty 3%
raises during FY 01, building a better budget, and improving
faculty involvement in the budgeting process.
- MSU-Bozeman FY 2001 Budget Priorities and Status Executive
Summary and MSU-Bozeman Preliminary FY 2001 Budget Development
Plan and Priorities were distributed (attached for members
absent).
- For FY 2001, there was an expectation of $2.7 million in new
revenue ($2.2 million, actual), additional obligations totaling
$3.3 million, and $3.5 million in proposed enhancements.
- On the general fund side of the budget - even though authority
was given for faculty raises, the funding for it was not totally
provided. The non-faculty personnel budget assumes a 3% vacancy
savings, so this amount is removed from the legislature's funding
of the university system.
- During discussion, the point was made that there appears to be
no review of prior year base allocations. Instead, the focus is
entirely on additional revenues and new proposed spending.
- Lump-sum funding is given to the Board of Regents by the
legislature. The Regents then use a "cost of education"
allocation to fund the units of the university system. It is
applied to resident enrollment, only. Depending upon the
enrollment mix at all schools at a given time, a unit may receive
more or less funding. The enrollment mix considers the
student/faculty ratio of each curriculum and graduate enrollment,
in addition to other factors.
- The ratio of out-of-state to in-state students affects revenue
from tuition, as does the number of credits each student carries.
- During discussion, it was stated that faculty agreed to do more
work through the PQO agreement, money for FY 2001 faculty raises
was authorized by the legislature, and additional tuition was
charged students. The issue is priorities of the university.
- It is implied in the distributed materials that the entire $74
million budget was entirely obligated before budgeting began.
- It appears the new MSU president is very keyed in on budgeting.
As there was no further business, the meeting adjourned at 5:10 PM.
Joann Amend, Secretary Ron Larsen, Chair