Report to the Senate Executive Committee and the Senate on the Meeting of the Budget Advisory
Group (BAG IV)
March 14, 2011
This meeting was occupied with completion of the presentation from Academic Affairs and an initial
conversation on budget scenarios for the 2011-2012 year and beyond. Presentations and other material
discussed are available on the BAG IV Website at http://www.albany.edu/budget/bag-IV.shtml.
Academic Affairs
Presenter: Susan Phillips, Provost and Vice-President for Academic Affairs
The Provost completed her presentation about the interchange between the teaching and research
missions that characterizes a research university. In the UAlbany context, this manifests itself in
variations across schools and colleges. While there are clearly exceptions, and recognizing that there
are different expectations, opportunities, and capacities across units, the College of Arts and Sciences
(CAS) delivers proportionately more instruction and receives proportionately less overall external
funding, while the professional schools and colleges provide proportionately less instruction, and
generate proportionately more overall external funding. (Note that only overall enrollment and
external funding figures were used; alternate views of the similarities and differences would be evident
in consideration of more detailed information about level of instruction and funding sources)
Discussion then shifted to a consideration of alternative budget scenarios for Academic Affairs for 2011-
2012, which begins in July, and beyond. To review the University’s overall current status, there is no
“official” budget as yet for 2011-2012. The Governor has recommended a budget for the entire SUNY
system that involves a 10 percent cut in state tax support and no tuition increases. A budget needs to
be enacted by the legislature, signed by the Governor, and then allocated by SUNY Central to the various
campuses before the university knows for sure what its revenue for 2011-2012 will be. In the interim,
the university has constructed a rough budget for planning purposes based on the presumption that the
Governor’s budget will be enacted; that UAlbany will get roughly the same share of this budget as it has
of earlier budget; and that carryovers from earlier years will have to be addressed.
The University had developed a two year budget plan last year in which units were expected to plan for
a reduction of $7.4 million in 2011-2012, which will leave approximately $5.9 million to be addressed if
the state budget is enacted as described above. All units, including Academic Affairs, have been asked
to plan for an additional 4 percent reduction on top of the reductions that were part of the two year
plan. For Academic Affairs, the target amount is $4.2 million.
Discussion centered around alternative ways of allocating this $4.2 million across the units within
Academic Affairs. A straight across-the-board allocation would require considerable reductions of faculty
and staff. While some departments or units may be able to absorb these reductions by attrition, many
do not have any slack in their state funds budget currently being spent for non-personnel or impending
retirements.
An alternative allocation based on the university’s strategies and priorities as articulated in the
university’s strategic plan and earlier Budget Advisory Group (BAG) reports produced a different pattern
of reductions. Under this draft allocation system, enrollment, strength, and external revenue were the
main criteria for academic units, such that units which teach large numbers of students, have strong
national reputations or bring in large amounts of external revenue would be “protected” under this
allocation and be asked to absorb smaller cuts than under an across-the-board allocation scheme. For
academic support units, the unit’s role in supporting the core academic mission, enrollment and
retention, and student experience were the main criteria.
This exercise produced a discussion of how best to operationalize the university’s core mission and
activities. Some define the university’s “core mission” as centering around the liberal arts education of
undergraduates, while the strategic plan and reports from earlier BAG’s have focused on graduate
education/creative work and graduate education as co-equal priorities with undergraduate education.
The guidelines and priorities set by the BAGs have focused on supporting programs “on the merits”,
which include enrollment, reputation, and faculty productivity; and called for focusing resources on
areas of “strength, reputation, and quality”1. There is a considerable difference between a
comprehensive college that has a few graduate and professional programs attached to it and a research
university which includes undergraduate education as one of its several missions. This discussion was
not conclusive.
Institution-wide Budget Scenario #1: “Administrative Consolidation”
Discussion next shifted to the first of several institution-wide budget reduction scenarios requested by
BAG IV. In this first scenario, the possibility of realizing budget savings from consolidating administrative
activities and reducing the number of high ranking administrators was considered. There is a persistent
stereotype that university administrations, including ours, are “bloated” and are over-staffed with high
paid administrators, the numbers of which can be readily reduced. Universities vary widely in how
administrative activities, and UAlbany has had several different administrative configurations in the past,
with activities being combined under one vice-president, for example, that are now managed by two
vice-presidents.
The discussion was fairly conclusive that UAlbany’s administrative structure is not “bloated” and there is
little, if any, opportunity for budget savings by consolidating administrative functions. Administrative
units have taken larger budget reductions than academic ones in the last four years. Data presented at
an earlier BAG meeting suggests that UAlbany has a “lean” staffing structure compared to its peers2.
Compared to other public research universities, UAlbany has fewer executive, administrative, and
managerial (EAM) employees compared to student enrollment or as compared to total faculty and staff
employment. UAlbany has, for example, 140 students for every such employee, while the median public
1 Links to earlier BAG reports and the UAlbany strategic plan are included on the BAGIV website at
http://www.albany.edu/budget/bag-IV.shtml).
2 These data are contained in a presentation by Assistant Vice-President Bruce Szelest titled “Key Performance
Indicators: Full Time Equivalent Staff” which is included on the BAG IV website at
http://www.albany.edu/budget/files/Comparative_data_for_BAG4_03-04-2011.pdf
research university has only 88. As a percentage of full time employees, EAM employees account for
about five percent of total FTE, which is about the average for public research universities.
Discussion was also relatively conclusive that there were few, if any, opportunities for budget savings via
administrative consolidation. Combining development activities and communications and marketing,
which now have two vice-presidents, eliminating one vice-president would not eliminate the need for
someone to be in charge of each separate function. The “demoted” vice-president functions might carry
a slightly lower salary than a vice-president, but the functions would still be performed at the same level
and realize no savings. One can realize savings by stopping the performance of particular functions, but
this is not feasible or legal for most of the activities currently supervised by vice-presidents. As reported
earlier, the university is in the process of engaging a consultant to evaluate the efficiency of its
administrative processes, which may produce recommendations for procedural improvements or
efficiencies.
Next Steps
BAG will be focusing on developing and evaluating additional institution-wide budget allocation
scenarios.
Academic Affairs Cumulative Reductions
rev 3/9/11
estimated
cumulative 08-09 through 11-12
BEFORE another 4%
FTE
initial st base
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
amount
(fac)
(staff)
cum %
Schools and Colleges
College of Arts & Sciences
All Other Schools/Colleges
School of Business
College of Computing & Information
School of Criminal Justice
School of Education
School of Public Health
Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy
School of Social Welfare
Academic Support Units
Enrollment Management
Graduate Student Support
Presidential Scholars
Undergraduate Education
University Libraries
All other support areas*
TOTAL ACADEMIC AFFAIRS
$68,070,563
$37,418,893
$30,651,670
$6,075,037
$3,310,409
$2,175,015
$6,776,072
$4,058,671
$5,056,326
$3,200,140
$37,502,406
$6,140,867
$14,081,480
$1,644,058
$1,859,252
$7,434,109
$6,342,640
$105,572,969
$10,824,457
$4,755,647
$6,068,810
$957,192
$827,293
$427,000
$1,290,235
$899,698
$1,068,392
$599,000
$8,367,846
$1,394,970
$3,300,000
$523,000
$690,695
$1,205,251
$1,253,930
$
19,192,303
111.2
53.8
57.4
9.0
7.1
4.5
14.3
9.5
8.2
4.8
10.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
7.0
2.0
1.0
121.2
36.8
14.5
22.3
0.0
6.6
0.0
3.8
3.0
5.3
3.6
52.9
18.9
0.0
0.0
4.0
15.5
14.4
89.7
15.9%
12.7%
19.8%
15.8%
25.0%
19.6%
19.0%
22.2%
21.1%
18.7%
22.3%
22.7%
23.4%
31.8%
37.1%
16.2%
19.8%
18.2%
