Deaton speaks with faculty on MU's fiscal future
The meeting also touched on intellectual property.
Published April 30, 2010
The spring semester general faculty meeting Thursday afternoon in Jesse Wrench Auditorium focused on the future of MU's budget and changes to intellectual property policy.
In his update to faculty members, Chancellor Brady Deaton spoke of possible fall enrollment issues, as well as MU's fiscal future.
Deaton said the current economic atmosphere lends itself to the possibility of a decline in enrollment. Deaton said many families are looking for ways to cut costs and community colleges have become a less expensive means for education in Missouri. Deaton said he expects to have a more accurate forecast for student enrollment after the May 1 deadline for deposits.
Deaton also said MU has been able to keep in-state tuition frozen because of a pact made with Gov. Jay Nixon.
"This year we accepted a 5.2 percent reduction of state appropriations to keep a 0 percent increase for in-state tuition," Deaton said.
Budget Director Tim Rooney said this 5.2 percent reduction in appropriations equates to a loss of 10 million dollars for the university.
Rooney presented the faculty with a budget scorecard where he outlined marginal changes in revenue versus marginal changes in spending for fiscal year 2011. Rooney said MU was still seeing incoming revenue in the form of tuition, enrollment and indirect cost recoveries.
"The growth of enrollment occurs because of retention and because the graduating class is smaller than the entering class," Rooney said.
But current revenue sources do not cover all of MU’s costs, and the result is a deficit of $12 million.
"We have $9.6 million in additional commitments that we have to meet this year," Rooney said. "We aren't expecting any salary increases or benefit increases associated with salary increases."
The university has $11.3 million to mitigate deficits, but there is an issue surrounding how the money should be utilized.
"Fiscal year 2012 is the one we're most worried about," Rooney said. "We know the stimulus money will be gone so we can either hold until 2012 with no budget cuts or deploy it all now and have budget cuts."
Rooney said MU could use some of the money to quell the fiscal woes facing the university immediately and still have some left over for 2012 to cushion the exhaustion of the federal stimulus funds.
"Now we have not made any decision on what we're going to do," Rooney said. "We're waiting on the state's budget and better information on enrollment. The next few weeks are pretty important in driving decision making."
Also on the agenda was a discussion on intellectual property policy with biology professor Tom Phillips. Phillips said it was important for faculty and staff to understand that only a portion of the policy had been revised.
Under the new policy, MU will have ownership over any work that has utilized a substantial amount of university resources.
"Limited secretary support, use of the library and your own time are not substantial resources," Phillips said. "If you think you might have used a substantial resource, but you don't think it should infringe on copyright, you should go to your chair and dean to negotiate."
In terms of joint efforts, multiple people can own partial copyright if they have served as an integral part of the creation process.