Excerpted Minutes from the May 13, 2002 Meeting of the Budget Steering Committee

Present: Jonathan Brand, Tom Crady, Bob Grey, John Kalkbrenner, Mark Montgomery, Mickey Munley, Russell Osgood, Todd Reding, Susan Schoen, Paula Smith, Marci Sortor, Jim Sumner, Jim Swartz, Frank Thomas, and Karen Voss.

The meeting began at 7:34 a.m. Jonathan Brand described the three items for discussion at this meeting: 1) a report on the discussion of the recent Board of Trustees' Budget Committee meeting; 2) a presentation by Jim Sumner regarding the budget implications of the Admission & Financial Aid areas of the College; and 3) an assessment of this year's budget process.

The four issues on the Board's Budget Committee agenda discussed at the recent meeting were: a) projected variance analysis for the in-year budget (FY 2002); b) update on the FY 2003 budget; c) update on the budget projections for FY 2004 and FY 2005; and d) the SGA Tuition proposal and related analysis. Karen Voss distributed to the Committee a memo in which she outlined the projected variance for the end of the current fiscal year. She predicts the College will close the fiscal year within budget. She reported that the budget is currently very tight and that the College is operating with very little fiscal flexibility. Ms. Voss stated she has been conservative in her analysis and reiterated her confidence that College will end the fiscal year within budget. Discussion ensued.

Secondly, the Committee discussed the changes to the FY 2003 Budget. Jonathan Brand reported the two changes to the proposed budget; one is the addition to the salary pool of $50,000 to make some faculty salaries/benefits at the assistant professor level more competitive and the other is the increase in restricted gifts and grants revenue of $97,000 due to success in grant activity.

Thirdly, Jonathan Brand reported on three changes to the projected budgets for FY 2004 and FY 2005. The changes were directly related to the increase in the number of students in on-campus housing, the projected number of diversity faculty positions to be rolled into the base budget in FY2004, and changes in the sequencing of the proposed campus plan facility projects. Discussion ensued.

The final Trustee Budget Committee agenda item, the SGA Tuition Guarantee Proposal, was discussed. Karen Voss and David Clay had done the analysis for the Budget Committee and distributed the results which showed a complex range of possible tuition prices for each entering class and a fluctuation in tuition between the classes during their four years at the College. The Budget Committee discussed the implications of this model on budget planning and its effect on achieving revenue balance. The Budget Committee agreed that the exercise of analyzing the student proposed model did illuminate the fact that the College should increase efforts at controlling significant expenses. Other tuition models were discussed as well and the Budget Committee decided against pursuing the current student proposal.

Jonathan Brand introduced Jim Sumner, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid, who made a presentation about admission and financial aid at the College. He described his departments' goals: a) filling the incoming class with the target number of qualified students; b) maintaining the quality of those incoming students; c) increasing the ethnic diversity of the student body, and d) increasing net tuition revenue. Associated with these goals are four implied objectives: growing the applicant pool (which would necessarily increase the quality of the pool); growing the student body modestly; maintaining the need blind policy and meeting the full financial need of admitted students; and marketing the institution nationally and internationally. Dean Sumner distributed a set of statistics showing a comparison of his budget each fiscal year since 1999 with the number of inquiries, applications, admissions and deposits. He and his staff are producing good results and increased numbers of students with a comparatively smaller budget. The Committee discussed at length the admission and financial aid operations and commended the Dean on his progress.

Jonathan Brand announced the remaining agenda item for the meeting, assessment of the budget process this year, will be tabled until the next meeting of the Committee next month. He also expressed his hope of having a break from meetings in July and resuming regular monthly meetings in August, 2002.

The meeting adjourned at 8:58 a.m. Central Daylight Time.

Respectfully submitted,

Susan M. Schoen