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Academic Affairs Budget Advisory Process (AABAT)

First Annual Report
September 8, 2007

Early in the Spring Semester of 2007, the Provost initiated an advisory process for academic affairs budget decisions. The first step was the formation of the Academic Affairs Budget Advisory Committee (AABAC), which includes academic administrators, the director of the Office of Institutional Studies, and representatives from each college. The college representatives were drawn from ProFac.

The committee has reviewed data on the performance of the academic units and assisted in the development of an annual report format for academic and research units. In addition, the committee advised on academic college and extension budget cuts and faculty position requests. (Note that positions requests were prioritized by colleges.) The committee also advised on allocation of an enrollment adjustment pool. After considering the committee’s advice the Provost made recommendations to the President. This report details both the process and the positions approved by the President.

In the Fall Semester, the committee will meet with deans to review unit reports. They will request to meet with departments if they have additional questions. As a result of these reviews, the Committee will advise to the Provost on unit performance issues that may impact on budget decisions.

Budget Cuts and Faculty Position Allocations

In order to resolve the deficit between the increased fixed costs of operation, including compensation and energy, and the combination of the appropriation and tuition increase, a budget cut was distributed across the campus. The Academic Affairs units took a budget cut of 4.02%, which included an additional enrollment adjustment fund.

Each unit presented to AABAC a plan for their budget cuts according to the following direction:

Academic Deans will develop budget plans explaining how they will apply the cut in a way that advances the strategic directions of the university while minimizing negative impact on (a) credit hour production, (b) time to degree for current students, (c) accreditation, (d) impact on graduate teaching and research assistants, and (e) research and creative productivity. This plan will include what faculty positions they would like permission to fill and how each position contributes to minimizing the negative impact of the cut as noted in a-e. Cooperative extension will develop a similar document with a focus on minimizing the impact on (a) Maine business, and (b) their citizen consumer groups (e.g., senior citizens, youth, homemakers).

Deans are also asked to list up to two positions, in priority, that they would fund if additional funding becomes available over the next few months. These positions are to be justified with the same criteria.

Following are the faculty positions approved for search during the coming year. Most positions were presented to AABAC. NSFA positions were not included in the process because of budget reconciliation issues in the college. Positions denoted with asterisks were approved before AABAC but are listed in order to provide a fuller picture.

Enrollment Adjustment Allocations

The following positions were allocated in order to address changing enrollment patterns and accreditation issues. By far the most pressing of these was in the School of Business, which has an accreditation visit coming in 2009. Their ratio if majors and student credit hours per tenure stream FTE was among the highest on campus.