Note: The Executive Budget Committee has updated these guidelines. View the revised FY12 guidelines.
To enable the campus budget committees to be more precise in their deliberations, the Executive Budget Committee has decided to provide both a target and guiding principles. Those are described below.
Budget target
- At the state level, the universities have been told that a cut in state appropriations is likely to be “between 10 and 20 percent.”
- To be conservative, the Executive Budget Committee has decided that we should plan for the highest number — a 20 percent reduction in state appropriations.
- For Missouri State, a 20 percent reduction of its $85 million state appropriation is approximately $17 million.
- By using one-third of the $9.9 million in carry-forward from salaries and fringe benefits, the $17 million can be reduced by $3.3 million to $13.7 million.
- The Executive Budget Committee estimates that approximately $3.5 million can be generated by modest increases in tuition and fees and from modest enrollment growth, thus reducing the total reduction to approximate $10.3 million.
- The approximately $10.3 million equates to a 6.2 percent reduction in the overall budget.
- Therefore, a 6.2 percent reduction is the target for all budget committees.
Guiding principles
- The 6.2 percent reduction initially will be applied across-the-board.
- Should the overall reduction be less than anticipated, the dollar difference will be available to the appropriate Academic and Administrative Budget Committees to reduce some of the proposed cuts and/or to reallocate the resources strategically.
- No one-time savings should be used to account for the 6.2 percent reduction – only on-going funds should be used to address these on-going reductions.
- Budgetary decisions should be consistent with the mission and strategic plan of the University, including the primary focus on student learning.
- The University should strive to achieve budget efficiency without reducing student access to core courses during Fall, Spring and Summer semesters — given the importance of student fees, it is clear that any reduction in student credit hours would further exacerbate the budget situation.
- Maintaining accreditation of current programs should be a high priority.
- Committees may address the budget reduction with an appropriate combination of cost saving measures and substantiated plans for increased revenues to the cost center.
- The overall goal of the budget decisions should be to help Missouri State University emerge as a stronger, more focused university poised for the future.