Staff Senate

October 22, 2008 (at Staff Senate meeting):
Streamline (UPBAC Subcommittee) - Kevin Thane reported support for Streamline on the subcommittee is strong. The Livingston and weekend routes are in operation. The subcommittee is beginning to consider potential sources for on-going funding from MSU. Those present at the Staff Senate meeting today re-confirmed their opposition to fund raising through parking hang tags.

A staff member raised her concern that perhaps benefits might be cut to meet the benefits pool budget deficit. Sara France responded, as UPBAC committee rep, to the effect that UPBAC was considering the current benefits pool negative fund balance and is deciding how best to ensure the pool is always maintained at sufficient levels. Cutting benefits was not identified as a means to cover shortfalls, nor was it suggested that it might be. UPBAC’s motivation was about maintaining benefits, and MSU’s ability to provide them to .5+FTE employees was extolled.

October 7, 2008 UPBAC discussed the following matters:

• Benefits Pool Issue. MSU faces a $525,616 deficit in the benefits pool due to personnel being funded from program fee, extended university tuition distributions, and departmental funds lacking the corresponding benefits allocation. More details are to be provided and a means of handling the current situation (and forward planning) is a priority for UPBAC.
• Enrollment Update. Student headcout is up, but the average student credit load is down, due possibly to student work schedules and/or online courses from other campuses.
• FY09 Budget. There is a $1 million budget shortfall for FY09 resulting from the benefits pool issue (above) and less than anticipated tuition revenue. Further information regarding the latter was called for but increased graduate tuition waiver utilization may be a contributing factor.
• F&A. UPBAC was presented with a revised plan (arising following an independent study of MSU's handling of F&A a couple of years ago) for distribution of federal grant monies to cover associated overhead costs. Fixed costs (space, library, IT, and other overheads) will now be paid centrally with the remaining income distributed to colleges, departments, and Principle Investigators (rather than departments receiving 45% of such revenue, and sharing in payment of fixed costs, as before).

UPBAC will reconvene as soon as further details of the benefits and tuition issues are available.

July 23, 2008 (at Staff Senate meeting) Sara France reported that UPBAC had passed the Subcommittee's recommendation for a one time only donation to Streamline by MSU. Some weekend service, and a limited route to/from Livingston will be added for FY09.

July 1, 2008 UPBAC members gave opinion on the recommendation of the UBPAC subcommittee re: a possible one time donation to Streamline.

May 6, 2008 items discussed:

• Presentation on the Parking Operations Budget - income/expenditure/activity & use of funds
• Follow-up on Streamline request for funding - UPBAC subcommittee will be formed to research and recommend
• Final approval of FY09 budget
• FY10/11 budget development - some discussion at the University System level expected this month
• Review and Adjustment of Strategic Plan - UPBAC offered some edits
• Review of President's strategic vision speech for initiatives to embrace - sustainability has been added to MSU's stragetic plan, and UPBAC supported the reminders of the role of the employee in student recruitment, retention, and success
• Update on two year education programming - MSU in discussion with the Great Falls College of Technology
• Follow up report on student loans issue - Federal bill passed. Some disagreement nationally as to its prospective effectiveness. Our local agencies are indicating they will continue to provide loans
• Public comment - there were no members of the public present.

April 15, 2008 - topics discussed:

• Streamline Transit System presentation and funding proposal - UPBAC 5/6/08 agenda will cover further discussion and more information from Streamline
• Campus Safety Enhancements - information item only
• Energy Conservation Initiative - UPBAC support of energy conservation proposal was unanimous

• Student Retention Programs - information item only
• Update on FY09 Student Applications - information item only
• Discussion of Student Loan Crisis for FY09 and Future - information item only
• FY09 Non-resident Recruitment Budget - information item only
• FY09 Macro Budget Worksheeet Update - information item only
• Update on FY10/11 Budget Processes - information item; anticipating discussion at May Board of Regents meeting
• Leadership MSU - information item only
• Next meeting: 1.30 - 5 pm, May 6, 2008

March 18, 2008 - first meeting of the new once per month schedule. Agenda included overview of FY08, discussion of FY09 and FY10/11 biennium budgets, agenda planning for April meeting, and public comment.

February 19, 2008 - UPBAC worked to amend the total cost of budget initatives in line with recent feedback from the Governor and other associated budget offices. Starting in March, UPBAC will commence a new meeting schedule of 4 hours per month in one meeting, rather than one meeting every week for 90 minutes.

December 11, 2007 - UPBAC worked towards bringing OCHE submissions to final draft in readiness for Friday's deadline. There will be no further meetings until February.

November 13-27, 2007 - UPBAC continues to work on various submissions requested by the Commissioner's Office for early December.

November 6, 2007 - ASMSU presented a request for consideration of university funding for Streamline. Two UPBAC members will pursue committee questions and bring further information in January. Initiative concepts were fleshed out further in preparation for the December submissions deadline.

October 30, 2007 - the work of the three initiatives subcommittees was further examined and discussed.

October 23, 2007 - SSara France reported on yesterday's first real working meeting of UPBAC. The committee has been divided into three subcommittees charged with identifying initatives requiring new funding. CEPAC-Staff Senate's representative on UPBAC was appointed Chair of the Infrastructure subcommittee. Regential objectives and an appropriate focus on Montana's economic development and viability are being observed. The subcommittees' initial findings are to be submitted to Chair Dooley on Monday. This process is working to a time line set by the Commissioner's Office which appears designed to bring the MUS budgetary process forward which, it was noted, is in keeping with the priority recommendation of the Recruitment and Retention Task Force.

September 25, 2007 - Sara France reported that UPBAC will be working on budgets for the next biennium, and adjusting the FY08 budget in line with final enrollment figures, due this week.

April 24, 2007. Here’s the news from today’s UPBAC meeting:
The Committee reviewed the Five Year Vision Update done by the SPC.
Changes were made to the Student Body section to address affordability issues. They will further modify it to address non-resident students.

Under Faculty and Staff, changes will be made to address the fact that at campuses in cities with a very high cost of living, salaries will be increased accordingly in order to attract a better candidate pool. This will include classified positions. Shannon Taylor also suggested that a line be included that 80% of MSU faculty will be at 85% or above the appropriate benchmarks for salary in their area.

In the Curriculum section, concern was expressed about item K. Academic departments are encouraged to prepare students to be forward-thinking, responsible and ethical regarding the use of energy and other resources pertaining to their discipline. This needs to be based on something measurable. It was also questioned whether this would be seen as a good-citizen goal or a political goal.

Partnerships and Outreach, section B. The types of programs offered by COT will be clarified so as not to be confused with regular MSU-Bozeman programs.

In section VI. Physical, Technological, Financial and Service Infrastructure, item G relating to the amount of money the Foundation will raise has been omitted, at the request of the Foundation, until a more specific goal has been set.

The remainder of the meeting was spent on Retention Initiatives as previously discussed by UPBAC and put together by SPOC. Greater focus is being put on recruitement of non-resident students and retention as funding will remain stagnant at least through this biennium. The initiatives are listed as: Presidential Tutors: Advanced math and science students would be given a stipend to tutor students one night per week.
Supplemental Instruction: Academic assistance program that utilizes peer assisted study sessions for historically large, difficult lecture courses.
Out-of-class experience for Freshmen Seminar classes: Provide a budget to seminar instructors to have and event such as a dinner, attending a lecture, etc.
Early faculty connection within major: Every department will host an event in the first 8 weeks of the semester to bring new students together with faculty.
Educate and Motivate Faculty (Faculty/Advisor Toolkit): A way to keep faculty current on catalog changes and aid advisors with course selection.
Reduce the size of English 121: Cap courses at 25 instead of 33.
Overview course in major: A course for the first semester where students could connect with the department and the faculty.

None of these initiatives will be too expensive. Alan Yarnell has received some grant money for this and Greg Young from the Provost Office will also contribute.

April 11, 2006
Allen Yarnell, Rhonda Russell and Jim Rimpau gave a presentation on the rising cost of their recruiting efforts. MSU is continually trying to raise the number of prospective undergraduate students, particularly from out of state. Several years ago they contracted with Royall, a company that specializes in getting leads for universities. This has turned out to be very successful. Each year the cost for this service goes up and each year this group comes to UPBAC to request more funding. It was decided to build this into the budget process much like yearly increases in utility costs and library acquisitions. It is a program that does end up making money for the university by bringing in more non-resident students.

The Committee returned to a review of the One-Time-Only budget proposals to present to the governor. Craig Roloff met with the governor’s budget director and the other campuses in Helena. The other campuses had very modest proposals compared to ours. At that meeting he got a good idea of what sort of things they were looking for and would be more likely to fund. There is a strong possibility that none of our requests will be funded. It was decided to take out all construction items as these are being looked at separately. The $5 million dollar item for graduate and undergraduate student fellowships was also removed because the governor has his own scholarship program. This is how the final list looks:

March 8, 2006 - from CEPAC Minutes - CEPAC is interested in being updated on MUS, Regent, and MSU budgetary issues and will invite Craig Roloff to share the latest information.

January 17, 2006 - UPBAC met briefly this afternoon to discuss the recent BOR meeting. We were told that it is too early to tell what will happen in the next biennium but our budget initiatives will not be funded unless the state budget outlook improves. Our focus now will be to see that MSU-Bozeman gets the best possible operating budget. We will try to maintain our current level of funding adjusted for inflation. We hope to be able to continue at the level we are currently at. Right now this is more important than budget initiatives. We have to protect against budget impacts from fixed cost expenses such as the pay plan and utility increases that we know are coming up. These things alone will require a large tuition increase.

The next task for the committee is to finalize the 07 budget. At the March meeting the regents want the budget for the next biennium.

Thanks for all of CEPAC's help working on the initiatives. I’m sorry they aren’t going anywhere for a while.

December 14, 2005 - at today's CEPAC meeting, Jeanne Wagner circulated a 2009 Biennium New Proposals document, and reported that the Board of Regents were now asking for budget proposals relating to global initiatives. Submissions for FY08-09 were less refined than UPBAC had at first intended due to a severe shortening of the project time frame. Prior to the document's completion, CEPAC received email from UPBAC Chair, Dave Dooley, confirming UPBAC's plan to incorporate CEPAC's recommendation of an electronic recruitment process.

November 9, 2005 - excerpt from CEPAC Minutes:
Craig Roloff updated CEPAC on UPBAC's current directives from the Office of the Commissioner of Higher Education. An unexpected, short-notice call for 2008-09 budgetary information has been issued for next week's Regents' meeting. UPBAC's work on the MSU Global Initiatives has, therefore, had to be adjusted to accommodate this. Consequently, a less refined document will be submitted than UPBAC would have liked, and relevant documentation will be circulated on campus on Monday. In response to UPBAC's campus-wide invitation to submit suggestions by November 4, CEPAC had recommended inclusion of a web based recruitment system into the Global Initiatives, and UPBAC sent word today that they plan to do so. Craig mentioned UPBAC's consideration of some salary adjustments for lower paid employees. He also reported that CEPAC's permanent funding is also to be put forward, with other items, in the first initiative under Goal III. He asked CEPAC to contact his office to ensure the proposed figures were complete and correct.

Meanwhile, for FY07, there is currently no budget amendment process planned since FY06 and FY07 were budgeted together last year, based on projected enrollment. However, UM over-projected actual enrollment (possibly by a little over 200 students) and MSU under estimated (100 students). Potentially, therefore, there could be a pro-rated reallocation but Craig recommended addressing this as/when funds become available.

November 2, 2005
CEPAC submitted the following comment to UPBAC:
As per UPBAC's invitation for campus input on the latest Global Initiatives draft, CEPAC is grateful for the opportunity to offer further comment.

First, CEPAC supports the themes on competitive salary, mentioned within the opening paragraphs of the latest Global Initiatives draft document, as in-keeping with CEPAC's ongoing dialogue with the Regents.

Second, CEPAC would like to further recommend the inclusion of the MSU Five Year Vision Classified Tactic #100 (implementation of a web based recruitment system, and other associated items) as a very appropriate Global Initiative under Goal III (institutional efficiency and effectiveness). Both the Classified and Professional Tactical Teams (ranking tactics together) allocated a high priority to this tactic last December. Subsequently, CEPAC continues to receive expressions of support for improving the application/search process in this way, and now highly recommends the concept to UPBAC.

CEPAC had also suggested inclusion of Classified Tactic #122 (planning and funding for growth). However, we are now better able to conceptualize UPBAC's methods for appropriately aligning the Regents' Strategic Goals and Objectives with the MSU Five Year Vision, and understand that the former does not replace the latter. Therefore, concepts of a wide scale, many already under UPBAC consideration, may appear in the MSU Gobal Initiatives draft, but that progression of the remaining Vision tactics are to continue as originally planned. As such, budgetary requests, for example, for (i) facility, program or workforce expansion, or (ii) new local initiatives will continue to be handled at the departmental/divisional level via UPBAC's budget amendment process - as would regular budget amendment business. If so, CEPAC recognizes that this would be the appropriate direction for Classified Tactic #122. Should we have misunderstood this, however, please let us know.

October 25, 2005
UPBAC met today and once again, discussed the global initiatives. The global initiatives are supposed to fit in with the University 5-year plan and can be the basis for specific items in the budget development process. With this in mind, the initiatives must be something we can put into an budget amendment with a ballpark figure for the Regent’s of what it would cost.

There is still room to bring in budget amendments that do not fit into the global initiatives. The example cited was UM’s need to purchase a new dump truck. There is not currently base funding in place for these items. How and if they will be paid for is up in the air right now.

In terms of CEPAC and Professional Council requests, Provost Dooley said he feels that it was useful commentary but does not need to be included in this document. Cathy Conover said that the Regents are very aware of salary issues. It is something that is always on the table. Several people at the meeting agreed that classified salaries need to be addressed and that salary issues at all levels need to be addressed in the Bozeman market because we are in a unique situation in terms of cost of living. The intent of this document seems to be to bring things to the Regents that they may not be aware of, or will appeal to them in terms of the big picture for all of the campuses.

October 12, 2005 - Excerpt from CEPAC Minutes:
Regents' goals and objectives for the Montana University System - ...CEPAC intends to talk [to the Regents in November] about its work in the context of the Regents' goals and objectives: (1) increase the overall educational attainment of Montanans through increased participation, retention and completion rates. (2) assist in expansion and improvement of the state's economy through the development of high value jobs and the diversification of the economic base (3) improve institutional and system efficiency and effectiveness. MSU's University Planning Budget and Analysis Committee (UPBAC) is currently working on recommendations in this regard, and CEPAC has offered some classified information which it hopes will be useful to UPBAC's deliberations. May 3, 2005 - press release following UPBAC's public meeting, May 2nd.

April 28, 2005 - President's Announcement:
The University Planning, Budget and Analysis Committee (UPBAC) will host an open forum for discussion of the proposed FY2006 budget plan on Monday, May 2, 2 pm in SUB Ballroom D. All faculty, staff, students and community members are invited to attend. The proposed budget plan may be viewed online at www.montana.edu/upba.

April 13, 2005 - Jeanne Wagner attended the CEPAC monthly meeting to give an UPBAC update. She described this year's change in the way the Board of Regents is handling MUS budgets this year: MSU was given a budget figure for FY06. If the amount proves insufficient, the Regents recommend raising tuition. If there is money left over, after all essential commitments are met, the Regents will approve how the surplus is spent. UPBAC us not considering any budget amendments for FY06 as it expects there to be no surplus in the budget. In the unlikely event there are extra funds, UPBAC will propose they be put towards projects requiring significant expenditure.

March 1, 2005 - Jeanne Wagner reported: Well, UPBAC finally met again yesterday. It seems the Board of Regents now wants to manage the University budgets very closely. They have given each campus a base budget. Any shortfall will be made up by tuition increases. Because of this new system, there will be no budget amendments this year. Later in the process when we have more solid number information, if there is any way to address the needs of the CEPAC office position, I will do so.

November 30, 2004 - Jeanne Wagner reported: At the UPBAC meeting this week the following items were discussed: The Governor’s budget looks somewhat better for us this year. As the incoming Governor, Brian Schweitzer has a chance to make some changes to the budget and he has promised that education will be a priority for him. He will make his updates by Christmas.

The Board of Regents would like to move some of the income from the research campuses (MSU Bozeman and UM Missoula) and divert it to the smaller campuses. We will know about this by mid-April. The UPBAC committee is opposed to this.

Once our budget is presented, we will stand firm with it. Anything not funded will be made up with tuition increases. Our 3% pay plan increase will be funded by tuition increases.

UPBAC will not meet again until February.

November 3, 2004 - Jeanne Wagner reported: UPBAC has not met since October 12 and is not scheduled to meet again before November 8. I will keep you updated. So far we haven’t done much.