The 2019-20 initial budget guidance provided to Faculties and units of the University incorporated a zero per cent unit level budget savings target, while still including salary increases, commitments made in 2018-19, Fiscal Framework increases for scholarships and Library acquisitions, strategic adjustments to the Fiscal Frameworks capital and debt repayment strategy, and more than $5.9 million in strategic funding for the President, Provost and Vice-President, Research. Soon after all units had submitted their budget requests, the Province made the Jan. 17th announcement regarding a 10 per cent decrease to domestic tuition rates, having a significant impact on the University’s budget going forward. With less than three months from the date our budget was scheduled for presentation to Senate, Brock found itself faced with a budget deficit of $21.3 million. Mitigation efforts began immediately with multiple consultation meetings, town halls and two Senior Administrative Council (SAC) full-day meetings. As a result, the following mitigation measures were put in place: • Enrolment plan mitigation, including converting higher application volumes, adjustments to admission averages within the parameters of the Faculty Handbook and additional winter intake (impact of $4.4 million) • Spring/summer tuition (impact of $1.2 million) • Temporary capital plan reduction (impact of $2.6 million) • Increasing student awards at a slower pace than originally planned (impact of $0.8 million) • Salary freeze for SAC and adjustments to certain planned compensation strategies (impact of $0.6 million)
• Maintain employee future benefits (EFB) contributions but reduce future reserve contributions (impact of $0.9 million) • Partial hiring deferral (impact of $3.4 million representing 43 deferred positions) • Part-time teaching costs not to exceed 2018-19 budget (impact of $1.6 million) • Reduction in travel and conferences paid from the budget (impact of $1.2 million) • Reduction in training paid from the budget (impact of $0.2 million) • Research services one-time reduction (impact of $0.3 million) • Ancillary services to increase contribution growth by 14 per cent (impact of $0.6 million) • Unit specific one-time contributions to the budget mitigation ($1.5 million) – see Appendix E for details The resulting proposed budget includes an in-year mitigation target of $3.25 million. While an in-year mitigation target is proposed and as such, mitigation efforts will remain in effect for 2019-20, the budget does include an uncommitted budget envelope of $1.5 million for strategic plan support and a $4.0 million contingency fund to mitigate budget assumption risks such as enrolment targets and possible further public policy implications. Further, any surplus at the end of the year derived from mitigation efforts will be reinvested in strategic priorities of the Institutional Strategic Plan.
19 2019-20 Budget Report
At the time of writing this budget report, we are projecting through our second trimester reporting (T2) for fiscal 2018-19 a funding surplus of $1.2 million. The T2 reporting can be found at brocku.ca/about/wp-content/uploads/ primary-site/sites/8/2018-19-Trimester2-Report.pdf. The majority of the surplus was driven by a revenue forecast exceeding budget of $2.3 million, driven in part by higher investments from the strategic initiative funds; as well as lower than budgeted salary and benefit costs as a result of positions included in the budget but not filled during the year, either partially or entirely. At year end, this projection will be updated to actual results in the 2018-19 Annual Report.
REVIEW
Financial update