ODU Board Approves Operating Budget and Plan for 2012-13
The Old Dominion University Board of Visitors on June 14 approved the 2012-13 operating budget and plan for the university in the amount of $543,065,000.
"The budget focuses on the strategic directions related to investments in instruction and academic support, including investments in online degree programs and STEM disciplines, campus infrastructure, campus life, student retention, recruitment and student enrollments," noted President John Broderick.
Broderick thanked the vice presidents for their contributions to the operating budget and the success of a new, enhanced budget development process, which was implemented this year. As part of this new structure of budget talks and collaborative work, the vice presidents spent upwards of 25 hours looking at all aspects of the university's operations and strategic plans, with the ultimate aim toward investing strategically in ODU.
Broderick also gave special thanks to Chief Operating Officer David Harnage for his leadership in the budgetary process, and affirmed that the 2012-13 budget "makes a strong statement about investing for our future."
The budget was developed from the initiatives outlined in the university's Strategic Plan and the actions taken by the governor and General Assembly during the 2012 legislative session, and is based on conservative assumptions related to enrollment growth.
With a combination of new general funds, ODU's new resource management strategies, revenue from the proposed tuition and fee increases, reallocations of existing resources, and an infusion of one-time funds, the university was able to make approximately $11.5 million in base and one-time Educational and General investments and approximately $3.4 million in student fee-supported commitments, Broderick said.
He pointed out that the coming year's tuition and fee increase is the lowest in the last 10 fiscal years, and reflects the governor's request to keep tuition increases as low as possible. "With the 3 percent mandated bonus and benefit increases in health care and retirement, all of the revenue generated from the proposed tuition increase will be used to fund these mandatory expenses," the president said.
Through strategic budget planning, ODU will add 25 full-time faculty positions, two faculty administrator positions and seven full-time classified positions in 2012-13. "These personnel investments are critical to the success of our academic mission and center on providing instruction, technology support for academic initiatives, counseling, student support services to address recruitment, retention and operational and maintenance support for university facilities," Broderick said.
After deducting the costs for the mandated 3 percent bonus, and increases in employee retirement and health care benefits, debt service, capital and operating leases, corporate insurance, utilities and scholarships costs, a total of $8.6 million remained for new strategic investments. By delaying the hiring of the full-time positions until January 2013, and carrying over uncommitted FY 2012 funds, a total of $3.5 million in additional one-time resources was added to the budget's bottom line, bringing the total economic impact for the 2012-13 fiscal year to $12.1 million.
In the distribution of these new dollars, 69 percent will go to instruction, research, academic support and public service; with 19 percent being earmarked for enrollment management and student retention; and the remaining 12 percent for campus infrastructure.
The 2012-13 budget also reflects the following:
The General Assembly provided $7.5 million in additional general funds and the 3.3 percent proposed tuition increase will generate approximately $4 million in "new" non-general funds for a total of $11.5 million in Educational and General (E&G) funding to support the 2012-13 Educational and General operating budget expenses.
The budget provides $1.5 million in institutional, military and athletic scholarships and $475,000 for on-campus employment funds to help mitigate the impact of the tuition increase on students and their families.
Approximately $3.3 million in base funds will be used to establish 25 new faculty positions and for faculty promotions, compression and equity adjustments; $750,000 is earmarked for the Center for Bioelectrics, and the remaining funds support enrollment management, student success initiatives, information technology, and operations and maintenance of the facilities.
The one-time funds were allocated to support online course development, Bloomberg Trading Room, marketing and advertising initiatives, research start- up equipment, mediated classroom, computer labs, desktop and IT equipment replacements, and library resources.
For auxiliary budgets, the increases in student fees were allocated to address institutional scholarships, student organizations and clubs, graduate student travel, operational and compliance enhancement within existing intercollegiate athletic operations, program enhancements for women's athletic programs, and retirement and benefit increases for auxiliary operations. The auxiliary budget allocations also address operating costs related to student housing, food service, health service and parking operations.