Report on the Meeting of the Budget Advisory Group to the University Senate and the Senate
Executive Committee
March 4, 2011
This meeting was devoted largely to informational briefings on UAlbany staffing and other benchmarks
compared to other public research universities and a continuation of budget briefings from university
vice-presidents. Copies of presentations will be posted on the BAGIV website at
http://www.albany.edu/budget/bag-IV.shtml , as well as on the Senate website at
http://www.albany.edu/senate/
UAlbany External and Internal Benchmarks
(Presenter: Bruce Szelest, Assistant Vice President for Institutional Research, Planning and Effectiveness)
Dr Szelest presented evidence from two major national surveys of staffing patterns and program
costs at public research universities. One survey, of all colleges and universities that receive federal
funds, is conducted by the Center for Educational Statistics of the US Department of Education. This
survey allows universities to compare their staffing patterns for both faculty and non-faculty staff to
their peers. UAlbany compares itself to other public research universities with very high research
activity. This survey covers the years 2005-2009, so that recent employment reductions are not
included.
The results of this survey indicate that, compared to its peers, UAlbany is sparsely staffed in
both academic and non-academic areas. UAlbany is among the smaller universities in its peer group, so
that it has absolutely fewer faculty and non-academic staff than many other public research universities.
Controlling for enrollment, UAlbany ranks towards the bottom of its peer group in student to total staff
(including faculty) and student to faculty ratios, meaning it has more students per staff member and
faculty than its peer institutions. In 2009, for example, UAlbany had 7 students for every staff member,
and 20 students per faculty member, both figures among the highest in its peer group.
This survey also allows comparisons of staffing between faculty and various types of non-
academic employees. UAlbany ranks towards the top of its peer group in terms of faculty as a percent of
total staff members, but significantly lower in numbers of managerial and professional staff as a percent
of total staff, where it ranks about average for its peer group. It ranks above its peer group average for
non-professional staff such as secretarial and clerical positions as a percentage of total staff.
Dr. Szelest also briefly presented data from the National Study of Institutional Costs and
Productivity, a separate survey which allows comparison of UAlbany to roughly the same peer group,
but focuses on costs and productivity for individual departments or program areas. These results were
not discussed at any length save to note that the results generally support the findings reported earlier
that UAlbany faculty typically teach more students than faculty at their peer institutions. The university
has developed departmental profiles including much of this information which are available on the
website of the Office of Institutional Research Planning and Effectiveness at
http://www.albany.edu/ir/departmental_profiles.htm . Data about program or department costs are
more problematic, since department budgets do not necessarily include many expenditures associated
with educating students such as support for graduate students, payments to adjunct professors, “start
up” funds for new professors, or the costs of providing space.
Division of Finance and Business
(Presenter: Steve Beditz, Interim Vice President for Finance and Business)
Finance and Business is among the largest non-academic units on campus. It is responsible for a wide
range of activities, including managing the university’s budgeting, accounting, and human resources
systems, environmental health and safety, and maintaining the university’s capital stock of office and
classroom facilities. The division has been subject to significant budget hits and staffing losses over the
last several years—over 70 FTE between 2008-09 and the end of 2011-12. Since the average pay in the
division is lower than that in the remainder of the university, realizing a given level of savings requires a
larger number of personnel not be replaced or be terminated than in units with higher paid personnel.
The result has been significant cuts in services to the rest of the university across a wide range of
activities. Cleaning and maintenance service levels are currently below professional standards, and
further reductions will result in further deterioration.
Discussion of this presentation centered around the deterioration of services, the impact of the
university’s facilities master plan, which is currently being developed, and the possibility of
“mothballing” buildings, or taking them out of service. Much of the university’s capital stock was built at
the same time in the 1960’s, which means large amounts of space are in need of renovation. The
university has a large backlog of deferred maintenance which has led to the practice of bringing new
buildings on line in order to “gut rehab” older buildings to keep them in service.
Division of Research
(Presenter: James Dias, Vice President for Research)
The Division of Research is responsible for a range of research management and regulatory tasks,
including managing contracts for support from external funders, compliance with regulations for such
matters as human subjects and lab animal protection, and technology development for both UAlbany
and five other campuses which have no technology development capability. The division is also
responsible for ten research centers and laboratories, including such organizations as the Atmospheric
Sciences Research Center, the Center for Technology in Government, and the Center for Functional
Genomics.
This division is largely funded by “overhead” revenue from grants and contracts garnered by campus
researchers and other units. The university’s external resource stream has been increasing steadily over
the last several years, with the largest share of income coming from specialized training and service
activities rather than traditional research grant funding. Much of the “state funds” in the division’s
budget are attached to two research centers, which had pre-existing state appropriations which have
been incorporated into the campus budget. The impact of cuts in state funds have thus been centered
on these two centers, which have been among the most productive units on campus in securing external
research funding.
The discussion of this presentation largely centered around the need to expand the university’s
technology transfer operations to expand the patenting and/or copywriting of faculty research and
training and service materials to turn them into commercially viable products. Currently the University
has only one professional working on these matters who the university shares with Albany Medical
School. This is a very low level of staffing relative to the University’s peers. Expanding this activity might
be of help to faculty seeking a market for their discoveries and increase university revenue from licenses
and royalties.
Next Steps
The committee will complete vice-presidential budget briefings at its next meeting, then begin
consideration of short and medium term budget scenarios.
