These minutes reflect
discussion and debate at a meeting of a committee of the
Minutes
Senate Committee on Finance and Planning
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
2:30 – 4:15
238A Morrill Hall
Present:
Judith Martin (chair), Jesse
Andrist, Rose Blixt, Rachel Curtiss, Daniel Feeney, Thomas Klein, Joseph
Konstan, Mikael Moseley, Kathleen O'Brien, Justin Revenaugh, Terry Roe, Michael
Rollefson, Nicholas Treat, Michael Volna, Warren Warwick, Aks Zaheer
Absent:
Steve Fitzgerald, Darwin
Hendel, Lincoln Kallsen, Michael Korth, Kathryn Olson, Richard Pfutzenreuter,
Karen Seashore, Thomas Stinson, George Wilcox, John Ziegenhagen
Guests:
Dean Gail Dubrow, Associate
Dean George Green; Associate Vice President Laurie Scheich (Auxiliary
Services), Mr. Bob Baker (Parking and Transportation Services)
[In these minutes: (1)
financing graduate education; (2) Enterprise Financial System; (3) parking
rates and plans, Twin Cities campus]
1. Financing
Graduate Education
Professor Martin convened the meeting at 2:35 and
welcomed Dean Dubrow and Associate Dean Green to discuss the financing of
graduate education.
Dean Dubrow had prepared remarks, as follows. (The text that follows is an extended
quotation.)
Thank you for the invitation
to discuss what Judith Martin has termed "one of the most confounding
issues on the list for Finance and Planning,", namely: the funding of
graduate education. Every year the
Council of Graduate Schools polls graduate school deans on what they consider
to be the most significant issues confronting them. Year after year, graduate deans report that
the funding of graduate education, hands down, is the most vexing among the
many challenges they face within graduate education.
My intention today is to (1)
outline the dimensions of the problem of financing graduate education; (2)
locate it in national and international context, as well as here at the
Let me say from the start
this is intended as an overview of the issue of financing graduate education at
a very high level. Should you have more
detailed questions—you can send them to me after this meeting and we will
respond.
Just before I came to UM in
August of 2005, I received a copy of the 2004 report prepared by the Financing
Graduate Education Task Force, which I believe was headed by [Vice President
Charles] Muscoplat. That report, which
analyzed the eroding value of grad school funding in the face of inflation,
among other things, argued the need for significant new central investments to
support graduate student fellowships and graduate programs with block
grants. The report recommends: $5
million annually in the biennial request for graduate fellowships, conditioned
on matching private donations; undertaking a major fundraising campaign
centrally and in collegiate units for graduate fellowships to match the
anticipated legislative appropriation; using the compact process to support
graduate education; a move to “right size” enrollment in graduate programs;
efforts to improve time-to-degree and completion rates within graduate
education (to reduce the need for unnecessarily long or wasted years of
support; merger and closure of lower-quality programs and other more minor
suggestions.
Indeed, in the nearly two
years I have been here, UM leadership has made good on its promise to reinvest
in graduate education. Block grant and
fellowship funding has increased by a total of $5 million dollars in the last
biennium, split 60-40 between the two programs.
To understand where this money would best be invested, we looked closely
at the reasons top applicants reported for declining an offer of admission to
the
In tackling the problem of
competition, the
Under my leadership, we’ve
listened closely to departmental concerns about fellowship that make the point
“one size doesn’t fit all.” As we’ve
gathered more departmental data about graduate student support we’ve come to
recognize that the assets and gaps in certain departments are not identical to
others. A comparison of bench sciences
in IT or CBS with one of CLA’s Romance Language departments illuminates this
problem. Abundant graduate funding in
the sciences kicks in at the point that students have finished their
disciplinary coursework and enter a specific faculty member’s lab. For that reason, the gaps in funding
primarily exist in the first two years.
In language fields, there is an endless supply of TA money due to the
number of undergraduate sections run by graduate students. The problem is not so much finding TA money
as it is supporting students in non-teaching developmentally appropriate activities,
e.g., research training and writing the dissertation, where a lack of funded
faculty research means few opportunities to engage in research preparation in
the course of their graduate studies.
Increased funding in related
programs, such as the Grant-in-Aid program, has brought additional funding and
training to graduate students in the form of research assistantships, which can
also be used on a more ad hoc basis
to fill some of these needs. So too,
academic programs reviews have helped to identify which fields may be ripe for
increasing faculty grant activity that will round out the funding picture for
graduate education. But all in all,
taken as a whole, it is clear that central administration has provided a
significant infusion of new money into graduate education in the nearly 2 years
I have been here, and I have been assured that requests for graduate support
are a top priority in the university’s biennial budget, as they are in my own
compact process.
As it currently stands, the
Graduate Schools total fellowship budget for 07-08 stands at $10,000,000 with
60% going to support fellowships and 40% devoted to the block grant program,
which provides base funding for approximately 90 academic programs from $5,000
per year for Classics, $30,000 to Anthropology, $75,000 for Ecology; to
$180,000 for history and $200,000 per year for Chemical Engineering.
Within the next year or so,
if we continue to require that academic units plan for developmentally
appropriate plans for supporting all of their graduate students, I believe we
will have put in place the necessarily incentives to recruit the best and
brightest students, right size the enrollment of graduate programs, and provide
graduate students with the conditions necessary for successful completion of
their programs in a timely way. We will
also have a much better grip on the extent of remaining need for funding
graduate education within the next year or so, which may run as high as five
times the current investment ultimately.
The key question for those who are thinking about the extent of the
remaining need and the realities of implementation is “where will that money
come from?”
-- Continued
prioritization of graduate education, especially block grants and fellowships,
within the biennial budget request;
-- Increased
support to faculty for pursuing external funds to support their students
through research;
-- Increased
efforts to pursue funding through private fundraising. I made the case for launching a new
development initiative in the
Over time, we will also need
to address the financial and other issues that surround TA and RAships which
are critical to the whole package we assemble to recruit each new class of
graduate students. It doesn’t much help
us that TA salary often is below the market rate, and extensive teaching at low
wages probably increases rather than reduces time to degree completion. Graduate students frequently lose out to
postdocs or staff in the bench sciences.
What constitutes attractive wages and benefits changes over time, with
The wide variety of sources
that contribute to Financing Graduate Education means that cooperative
approaches which leverage resources tend to be the most effective over
time.
(End of Dean Dubrow's
remarks.)
The question they have heard repeatedly in CLA, Professor
Martin related, is that the imperative to right-size programs is seen as
cutting the number of students, but the programs fund themselves through
teaching large classes, in part with graduate student help, and they do not
want to push the graduate students into classes without training. Graduate student training is a complex issue,
Dean Dubrow said. The
One part of the tension is that some units in the
University see graduate students as employees, others see them as students, and
some strike a balance, Professor Konstan said.
In his view the University needs to return to a view of assistantships
as assisting students complete a degree.
Professor Konstan asked where the link to the market is
in terms of right-sizing departments.
Dean Dubrow talked about local determination and right-sizing; where
will the students get a job? He also
asked how much the budget model leads to short-changing graduate education
(e.g., not providing funding for graduate seminars). On the latter point, Professor Martin
commented, departments offer them anyway, sometimes on an overload basis.
There are multiple markets that affect higher education,
Dean Dubrow said. The University will
not attract top faculty, for example, if they will be unable to attract top
students. The market for students
varies; a common charge is that there is a lack of academic jobs for Ph.D.s in
English. Those graduates get jobs in a
wide variety of institutions, and for most their objective is not an academic
position in an institution of comparable rank—they prefer liberal arts
colleges. What the University should not
do is set the size of the graduate study body in departments to the number of
TAs they need, or so that each faculty member gets at least one graduate
student in his or her specialty. The
Professor Roe asked if the
Professor Warwick asked about the 21st Century
funds being used up. Dean Dubrow said
they have been tapped out. Professor
Warwick said those funds are a great way to increase support for graduate students
and suggested that the
Professor Zaheer asked how the increased aid levels have
helped the University compete with top schools.
Dean Dubrow said the increased aid has only been available for a year so
she was reluctant to make a report, but said there clearly is an arm's race in
competing for the best graduate students and she hopes the University can keep
up.
Mr. Klein asked how they identify departments that are on
track to excellence. Dean Dubrow said
there are eight variables, such as the NRC rankings (which have a shakeup in
the new study because NRC is using a quite different method), quality of
faculty identified by awards and program reviews, how effectively departments
recruit top scholars, and so on. The
indicators provide a record that the
Professor Roe asked about Dean Dubrow's involvement in
the legislative request. Dean Dubrow
said she was not consulted on the dollar amounts requested but that she had a
serious commitment from Provost Sullivan that she has chosen to trust will be
honored. She is not involved with the
legislature. Professor Roe said the
University has learned that legislators are often excited to hear from
individual faculty because they can see the relationship of faculty work to the
welfare of the state.
Professor Martin thanked Dean Dubrow for joining the
meeting.
2.
Professor Martin now welcomed Mr. Volna back to talk once
again about the Enterprise Financial System.
She reported that after he last talked with the Committee on this
subject, there were concerns about the "Integrated Services
Framework," which called for certain financial activities to be the
department's responsibility, some the responsibility of central business units,
and some "cluster" college/administrative units accountable to both
local and centralized units.
Mr. Volna distributed a visual representation of the
department-cluster-central concept that noted which levels would have which
responsibilities. He emphasized,
however, that in July, 2008, when the system is fully implemented, the vast
majority of financial activity will be at the department level. He has heard claims that the plan is to
centralize most things, eliminate jobs, and create a top-down system. He said that is definitely not true and there
will be no change to the core philosophy of how financial matters are handled at
the University. Budgets will be done at
the local level and the system will support them. The only change is in a few items in the
"cluster model" column (that includes A/R customer bill entry,
purchasing oversight, payment voucher entry, journal entry, annual budget
oversight, position management, and data analysis and reporting).
The
change is being made for several reasons.
The President has emphasized the transformation of the University and
his administrative task force proposed the cluster model be used wherever
possible to increase efficiency and security.
Moreover, when they looked at the new system and what it can and cannot
do and where there are gaps, they tried to identify a way to solve the problem
(the gap). Should they change the system
or change institutional policies or practices?
The items in the center of the list cover the gaps, high-volume
transactions that can be done more efficiently at a higher level than the
department. In the case of purchasing
oversight, for example, buying will remain at the local level; the plan
provides oversight for exceptions. For
each item on the list, the attempt is to find a way to locate it so it is not
centralized but is at an intermediate point providing access to colleges and
departments but protecting security.
Departments
will have the same access to reporting that they do today, Mr. Volna said in
response to a question. What departments need for day-to-day work will be
available. Nor will access and security
be changed; if someone has access to a document today, he or she will have
access in the new system. The new system
blends data (richer), tools (more complex), and skills (must be higher).
Will
they be ready in July, 2008, Professor Konstan asked? There is a fear that data will not be
available; it would be nice to have the system fully tested and available July
1. They are doing that testing, Mr.
Volna said; their highest priority is the high-volume and high-distribution
reports or those requested for compliance purposes. Lower on the list are those reports rarely
requested or specifically requested for CUFS; in those cases, they intend to
wait to see what the data needs are.
They will not develop new reports until departments have had a chance to
work with the new reports and data available.
Will
the accuracy of data input improve with the new system, Professor Feeney
asked? Groups enter data differently
sometimes, he said; will be there be competence training so that people do not,
for example, put money into miscellaneous categories when it should not
be? Data integrity underlies many
concerns, Mr. Volna said. There will be
more than 60 courses offered on the new system, and while no one will be required
to take all 60, people will be required to take those courses related to their
jobs. If one has broad responsibilities,
he or she could be required to take a fair number of courses. Data accuracy will be very important, he
agreed.
Professor
Konstan asked if Mr. Volna were talking to another Senate committee. If not, he suggested that time might be
scheduled for Committee members interested in more technical issues, after they
have a chance to talk to people in their departments. Mr. Volna said he would be happy to meet with
a subset of the Committee about details of the system. Professor Martin said she would send a
message to Committee members inviting them to a technical session; she agreed
it would be helpful if some Committee members could help keep an eye on those
details.
Mr.
Volna distributed copies of a description of Service Level Agreements, which
establish "measurable agreed-to targets of performance between the cluster
and central financial services (required), and the cluster and the departments
financial areas (highly recommended)."
These are used across the University, Mr. Volna said, and they have
found them to be a good way to clarify expectations and accountability when
splitting up work. He said they hope to
create such agreements between departments and clusters so that faculty know
what to expect and to define benchmarks.
Professor
Feeney reported that when this system was presented to the Academic Health
Center Finance and Planning Committee, a question about intended and unintended
consequences came up. If a faculty
member is not interested in the training, will there be pressure on local staff
to become more expert? He said he was
not interested in the training and would rather be able to tell staff what he
needs and let them handle the technical elements. Is that question bubbling up? Mr. Volna said he has not heard it and does
not know if it is widespread. He is
meeting with each dean and vice president and chancellor, creating liaisons,
and encouraging teams to develop local approaches in their colleges. But they do want to see a narrow band of
standardization; in some areas the University does things in two dozen
different ways, which makes it difficult to achieve efficiency or savings. They want to deal with 85-90% of activity in
standard ways, and handle things that are three standard deviations off the
norm on an exceptions basis.
Professor
Martin asked if Mr. Volna would return in September to let the Committee know
how the change is going. Mr. Volna said
he would be pleased to do so. Professor
Feeney said that a lot of money is focused on this project and that a lot of
other projects have been put on hold because of it; will it really be completed
in 2008? It will, Mr. Volna promised.
3. Parking
Rates (Twin Cities Campus)
Professor Martin turned to Vice President O'Brien to introduce
a discussion of parking rates. Ms.
O'Brien noted that auxiliary units, like academic units, are now preparing
their budgets; there has been a presentation of the Parking and Transportation
Services (PTS) budget to Senior Vice President Jones and Vice President
Pfutzenreuter, and this Committee has always also been interested in it. In the course of setting many rates this year
(housing, parking, dining, etc.), they are paying attention to the cost of
attendance for students.
Mr. Baker distributed a 10-page handout and reviewed the
Vision Statement, Mission Statement, and Goals for PTS and then noted a few
"quick facts." The first two
quick facts were that there are 6 parking garages and 8 parking ramps, which
led Professor Martin to inquire what the difference between them is. Mr. Baker explained this is a distinction
which seems to exist only in the
Mr. Baker reviewed the statistics related to campus
shuttle and commuter bus service use and noted that about 68% of those who
arrive on campus each day do not do so in single-occupancy vehicles. That represents a significant increase in the
last three or four years. There were
about 3.9 million bus riders in 2005-06 (mostly students); the average cost per
passenger was 87 cents. The number of U-Passes (students) increased from about
17,000 to 18,693; the number of Metropasses (faculty and staff) increased by
about 100, to 1441. Customer
satisfaction surveys suggest that people are very pleased with the bus service
they receive.
The campus has 20,123 parking spaces, of which 12,838 are
contract, spread across lots, ramps, and garages, and of which 13,541 are on
the East Bank. Professor Martin said she
has heard rumors that the campus has more parking spaces than it needs. Mr. Baker said that it is all a matter of
location; in some cases (e.g., the Washington Avenue Ramp), they could build a
facility three times the size of the existing one and it would still be
full. In other cases, at the periphery
of a campus area, the lots may not fill up every day.
Mr. Baker reviewed the financial parameters of PTS. It is self-supporting, with no state funding;
a portion of the student service fee is allocated to support the on-campus
transit system and the U-Pass program.
If central funding is used to subsidize parking, less money will be
available for academic purposes. As
low-cost surface lots disappear, replaced with higher-cost structures,
additional revenues are needed to balance the budget. Parking revenues are used to support transit
and other transportation alternatives (the buses are not free). Parking rates are based on facility type and
associated cost and are influenced by market factors of facility type,
location, and demand. It costs up to 10
times as much to build a ramp space (about $15,000 – 17,000) as a surface lot
space; a garage space can cost up to 20 times as much (about $25,000 or more,
depending on the site). Mr. Baker
reviewed the allocation of PTS funds in 2005-06 ($25,565,113); 34% to capital
projects and debt service, 18.5% to salaries and fringe, 10.4% to maintenance
and repair, 13.6% to the bus and bike program, 13.7% to the U-Pass/Metropass
programs, and 10% to other expenses such as utilities.
The parking lots and facilities need shrubs and trees,
Professor Martin commented. Mr. Baker
agreed but said they can become security issues, they get hit by snowplows, and
they don't respond well to the salt that is used in the winter.
Projected income comes from contract parking (44.1%),
event parking (6.3%), U-Pass/Metropass programs (12.4%), transient/meter
parking (32.9%), and campus shuttle (3.7%).
The "current service level cost drivers" are wages, fringe
benefits, information systems, increased funding for depreciation, and
increased funding for the East Gateway District; the latter two account for
over $900,000 of the total anticipated increase of $1.1 million. Mr. Baker explained that PTS is trying to add
to the funding for depreciation over a 5-10-year period, and that PTS will also
contribute about $13 million for roads and sidewalks in the East Gateway
District over a number of years in the near future. Those improvements will also add to operating
costs, and they would like to phase them in over 6-7 years. Professor Konstan asked what the process is
to get on the list of things that do or do not change; does PTS have an
advisory group? Is this Committee the
only consultation? Mr. Baker said they
also consult with a student advisory group.
Mr.
Klein asked if the depreciation allowance in the plan for the next fiscal year
covers the anticipated amount needed to replace facilities funded by Parking? Professor Konstan asked if the amount in the
2007-08 budget ($654,000) is an INCREASE over the previous year's contribution
and whether PTS is keeping even by setting aside these amounts. It is an increase, Mr. Baker affirmed, and
said that they are falling behind.
Parking facilities are in good shape right now, but in 15-20 years there
will be large projects (e.g., the
The changes PTS is recommending, to meet its proposed
budget obligations, are an increase in parking (contract and non-contract), an
increase in the transportation fee, and increases in the U-Pass and Metropass
rates. Options they rejected (in part
because this Committee objects when PTS suggests doing so) include eliminating
free night/weekend parking, the Washington Avenue Bridge circulator, the St.
Paul circulator, late night/weekend shuttle, free event parking for contract
holders, and the charge for any-facility contracts.
Mr. Rollefson said that parking on the campus is a
bargain compared to downtown rates but asked if increasing parking charges at a
rate greater than the salary increases is a strategic decision. Mr. Baker said it is not; they factored in
salary increases but developed the budget on the basis of what it costs to do
business. They compare rates with
downtown facilities, and everyone believes the University should be able to
operate more cheaply, but their wages are the same as elsewhere in the
University and the quality of the parking structures is high (e.g., lights and
cameras), and the programs they operate cost money.
Professor Konstan said the quality of facilities is an
important point that should not get lost.
The University is not in downtown, but the (privately-owned) ramp on
Seven Corners charges $80 per month, which is close to the University, which
charges more than that. People vote with
their feet, which is why the spots on every street around the University are
filled every day. He said students are
reluctant to come to campus because of the cost of parking. It is wonderful to support the East Gateway
District and to increase the allocation for depreciation, but it is
irresponsible to do both right now. It
is irresponsible to increase rates more than the increase in what the
University is paying students in student jobs.
Depreciation is a 15-year project; they can take care of some of it now
and some after the East Gateway District costs have been paid for. Professor Martin agreed, noting that PTS does
expect to generate additional revenue from the new stadium parking facilities.
Vice President O'Brien recalled that an institutional
decision was made before any of the people currently at this meeting were on
the Committee: PTS would run a campus
bus service, it would subsidize transit, and it would pay for streets,
sidewalks, and skyways. When people pay
for parking, they are also paying for part of the University's infrastructure;
if those costs are not paid from parking revenues, they would need to be paid
from some other budget. This is a policy
question and it was a purposeful decision that parkers would subsidize transit,
she said. Professor Martin agreed that
was fair, but with the new budget model, where units pay for what they use, one
can wonder if PTS should pay for sidewalks and skyways. That was a policy decision they did not make,
Ms. O'Brien pointed out. The Committee
might raise it again, Professor Martin suggested. With the cost pools methodology now in use to
distribute costs in a manner that is an approximation for usage of the service,
doing so becomes feasible, Mr. Klein added.
Ms. Blixt commented that she has had contract parking for
a long time, and grouses like everyone else about the price, but it is
beneficial to have a bus that goes between campuses and she benefited from the
motorist assistance program, which she said is well worth paying for as part of
her parking contract. Can anyone use
that program, Mr. Moseley asked? As long
as they parked legally in a University facility, Mr. Baker said.
Professor Konstan said that there is a proposed 4%
increase in PTS costs when wages and salaries will increase only 3.5%, for two
reasons. First, depreciation was not
handled right in the past and needs to be dealt with, and second, there is
external (to PTS) pressure to pay part of the East Gateway District costs. He said he would rather see a model that ties
parking increases to salary increases.
Ms. Blixt said it comes down to dollars, not percentages; the actual
dollar increase in the cost of a parking contract is a lot less than the salary
increase.
The rates for contracts is proposed to increase as
follows: lots: $61 to 63.50 (4.10%); ramps: $90 to 93.50 (3.89%); garages: $117 to 122 (4.27%). Hourly facilities would increase 10% ($2.50
to 2.75), carpool parking would increase 11.11% ($2.25 to 2.50), and Metropass
and U-Pass charges would increase 3.23%.
The student transportation fee would increase from $15 to 16, an
increase of 6.67%. There would be no
increase in event parking (at $7 and $9, depending on the nature of the
event). They expect to clear only about
$300,000 to $350,000 at the new stadium, because there are only seven football
games. They look at the market for event
rates every year and compare them with the Twins, Orchestra Hall, etc., but not
the Vikings.
Professor Warwick noted that tax season had just ended
and asked if it would be possible for people to make a donation to parking, in
support of University activities.
Professor Konstan added that one could make a donation of $300, which
would allow PTS to sell contract spots for less and allow the individual to
write off the donation.
Professor Martin next asked about the proposal from GAPSA
to allow reduced-cost parking on nights and weekends for graduate
students. Mr. Baker reported he met
recently with Council of Graduate Student and GAPSA representatives and as a
result they are doing two things. First,
they are extending night contract parking to graduate students (at present it
is available only to faculty and staff), which begins at 4:30. They will work with students, depending on
the location; they do have security concerns (they have not had a significant
incident in a parking facility for 15 years and they like to congregate people
in certain facilities for night parking).
Second, they need to study further the limited-use contract that is now
available to faculty and staff (which provides for 22 days per year at the cost
of one month's parking). That program
has sold like hotcakes and they will evaluate it at the end of the year. The problem is that it is like Russian
roulette: PTS does not know the number
of people who will show up on any given day.
They can also be more flexible for graduate students on the night
contract parking and they have asked GAPSA to survey its membership to get an
idea of the number of people who might be interested in the limited-use
contract.
Professor Martin commended Mr. Baker for working with the
graduate students and said it would be a nice option to offer.
Mr. Baker next displayed a schematic of the East Gateway
District with the new football stadium and explained how streets would be
relocated, where parking facilities would be, and how they would interact with
the proposed Central Corridor LRT line. He
cautioned that parking will "not be pretty" the next couple of years
while construction is under way. Vice
President O'Brien added that with the new research facilities planned for the
area, there would be an additional 1000 faculty and staff.
Professor Martin thanked Mr. Baker and Vice President
O'Brien for their presentations and adjourned the meeting at 4:40.
--
Gary Engstrand