David K. Scott was Chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Amherst, 1993-2001.
This is an archive of the Chancellor's Web site during his tenure.
IV. Overview of the Multi-Year Plan
We
provide first an overview of anticipated revenues and expenditures.
Funding for all initiatives will come through three modes:
Allocations, (e.g., from the State and from private fund raising) which are available for investment as new revenues. Allocations may be recurring, or non-recurring as an allocation for one year or for two or three years.
Reallocations, which do not change the overall budget, but shift funds from one area to another to meet changing priorities. We are committed to 1% reallocation in major budgetary units for each of the next five years, viz. $10 million. The major component for FY97 is the Academic Program Review.
Restructuring, which need not change the overall budget either, but which involves more radical shifting of budgets than reallocation. Reallocation is a mode which should occur every year in a dynamic institution, regardless of whether budgets are increasing, steady or decreasing. Restructuring is a resetting of the budget that takes place less frequently, say every five years, and leads to more fundamental changes in the mode of operating. Two examples in this plan are the retirement incentive program and the administrative redesign program. Under the retirement program, some 435 faculty and staff will leave the University between now and FY98. The plan calls for an overall replacement rate of 50% in academic areas and 35% in the academic support areas. The funds liberated will be invested in areas of information technology, infrastructure etc., in order to create an environment with better support for people and programs. Obviously such a restructuring will be effective only if processes in the institution are administratively redesigned, so that the array of programs can function. Otherwise fewer people are forced to do more with less. We must do differently with less.
The overall budget plan for the five year period is set out in Table I and II.
Table II gives a break-out of plan over five years. As the years roll forward, as more details of the implementation of the Task Forces and Working Groups crystallize, and as opportunities and constraints are encountered, it will be necessary to modify the plan. But it provides an overall framework and context for decision making. These tables will be updated frequently and used to inform the community on the progress of the plan.
The next section provides a brief discussion of each item in the plan, both revenues and expenditures, and how each fits into the vision of creating a more integrative and multidimensionally excellent, Land Grant-Research University.
