The Murray State News

October 26, 2012

VPs, Regent discuss distribution of funds

Chris Wilcox || News Editor
cwilcox2@murraystate.edu

BUDGET
TheNews.org
The University operating budget is one of the most important documents in the University system ... so (students) should never be intimidated or afraid to ask about the budget.
-Jeremiah Johnson, Student Regent

Vol. 88, No. 11

YOUR GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSITYS ANNUAL OPERATING

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The Murray State administration prepares an annual operating budget, setting the guidelines for the expenditures and revenues of the University. The state government mandates businesses or institutions receiving public funding provide documentation regarding budgets. Jeremiah Johnson, student regent and Student Government Association president, said the operating budget shows the constituents of Murray State where all of the money is going and approximately how much the University gets from tuition, state appropriations and elsewhere. The University operating budget is one of the most important documents in the University system, he said. It is very important for students to know where their money goes and it is increasingly important for the students to know that once the budget is passed at the Board of Regents meeting it is public record, so they should never be intimidated or afraid to ask about the budget. Tom Denton, vice president of Finance and Administrative Services, said the operating

budget is established on a fiscal year basis to coincide with the states operating year. Murray State is considered a component unit of the entire state budget process and is included in both the state biennial budget and the state annual (actual) operating revenue and expenditure report, he said. The Board of Regents approved the 2012-13 budget at its June meeting. The greatest variable is whether the departments expend their budget expenditures, whether there are new revenue not budgeted, and whether departments expend their prior years carryover funds. Denton said. According to the 2012-13 operating budget, approximately $124 million has been budgeted for the education and general portion of the revenue budget. The grand total revenue budget, which includes the education and general section and auxiliaries, is approximately $152.7 million. Students contribute $66.9 million to the education and general subtotal revenue budget, in the form of tuition and fees. Denton said the format of Murray States budget includes the nationally standardized

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Graphic by Evan Watson/The News

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see BUDGET, 3A

The chart above depicts the total budget for each of the nine academic colleges/schools by the order they are found in the 2012-13 operating budget. The blue bar illustrates the total budget and the red bar shows the instructional budget, which includes some services the colleges/schools provide, but primarily includes the salaries of the faculty and staff. *The School of Nursing has the same budget, for both classifications.

State, city grant first packaged beer licenses

Edward Marlowe || Staff writer
emarlowe@murraystate.edu Beamer Barron/The News

The Arthur J. Bauernfeind College of Business budget planning and review team discusses what the college will do to reduce expenditures and increase profits.

Review teams begin finance evaluations

Chris Wilcox || News Editor
cwilcox2@murraystate.edu

As the University enters the 10th week of the fall semester, the budget planning and review teams established by President Randy Dunn have begun prioritizing and evaluating academic and nonacademic programs. The teams were established to reduce or re-appropriate funds to make up for a state-made $2,289,600 deficit to the University budget. Josh Jacobs, chief of staff, said there has been no set number established by the presidents office or the Board of Regents, for how much each team should cut, but he said, the board indicated the administration should not rely on reserves for the coming year, as they did for this years budget. The board approved the use of

approximately $1.9 million of reserves for 2012-13, he said. The Board of Regents annually reviews recommendations from Dunn, including those in regards to the University budget. This year, the president will make a recommendation to the board based on the activity of the teams and the work of the administration, Jacobs said. While no set number exists, he said the board and the president expect the review teams to take their charge seriously, which will result in savings and revenue for the University. Jacobs said the presidents office has provided no strict metric or guideline the teams are to use. We did provide examples from other institutions that the teams could reference, he said. But we did not dictate a standard document.

He said the metrics created by the teams need to loosely address five guiding criteria. 1. Essentiality History, size, scope, relationship to mission and overall essentiality to the institution; 2. Demand External and internal demand, including enrollments and numbers served; 3. Quality For program inputs, outputs and process quality; 4. Cost Effectiveness Revenues and other resources generated against all costs associated with the program, including standard productivity measures; and 5. Opportunity Impact, justification and expansion prospects, Jacobs said. On Oct. 16, a meeting was held in which the budget planning and review team chairs met with President Dunn to touch base and report preliminary suggestions. We wanted to reiterate the

charge, Jacobs said. (To) allow the chairs to ask any questions, as well as have the opportunity to discuss any items as a group. Jacobs said the questions asked at the meeting included how to deal with the overall process moving forward. He said the members of the teams also asked about the process they should employ to clarify any jurisdictional questions for programs that may provide a service to the community or campus, but are also academic in nature. Dunn said each academic and nonacademic team determines its own meeting time and frequency. While no set dates have been established on the progress of the teams, the presidents office has set a general timeline, which includes an interim report to the

While businesses continue to scramble for the limited supply of package liquor store and tavern licenses available, students and faculty will no longer have to wait for the first beer sales to arrive. Monday afternoon saw the first legal alcohol transactions in Murray take place inside Five Star Marathon, located at Five Points. Kendra Clere, sergeant for the Murray Police Department and City Alcohol Beverage Control (ABC) Administrator for Murray, said while beer would arrive quicker than liquor stores and taverns, citizens could still be waiting for all of the license applications to be approved at the state and city levels. Just days before becoming a legal distributor of alcohol, Five Star Marathon made a misstep in the process, selling before finalizing both licenses. Last Friday afternoon, after having been stocked by Miller and Budweiser Distributing Co., Five Star Marathon began erroneously selling alcohol to customers before obtaining its city licensing. Clere said the entire situation was just a misunderstanding and has already been handled within city jurisdiction. Five Star thought that because they already had their state license they could start selling, but they didnt have their city license, she said. Without having their city license and having it posted like it was supposed to be, they technically couldnt sell because they were in violation with city policies. As of Tuesday morning, only Rite Aid, Hucks, Max Fuel BP and Five Star Marathon had been approved not only at the state level, but also on the city level. Each business began selling by the early afternoon. More businesses, Clere said, would follow in the

see TEAMS, 3A

see ALCOHOL, 3A

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The News
October 26, 2012

News
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agriculture, which is going to be a more narrow group of individuals taking those classes. He said there are many variables and it was impossible to say one area or position on campus was more important than another. Part of that is in the choice you make when you decide what to major in, he said. While faculty tend to have a higher salary than staff at Murray State, Denton said the average staff salary, excluding hourly-paid workers, was dependent upon three areas: market for the position, cost of living and standard benchmark salaries, which are gathered on a national level. The budget across areas of responsibility, within the general and education fund portion, also varies greatly; Academic Affairs has a budget of approximately $71.3 million, while Student Affairs has a budget of approximately $7.3 million. Robertson said it was not unusual for Academic Affairs to have a much larger budget than Student Affairs. The scope of Academic Affairs is much larger than Student Affairs, he said. Its budget includes each academic college, all of the faculty salaries and the services they provide. Robertson said the budget for Student Affairs was spread thin and there was not a lot of personnel in some areas, but said the office still has the dollars necessary to provide basic services. In the online edition of this feature, located at thenews.org, a link to the Universitys 2012-13 operating budget is posted.

BUDGET
From Page 1
structure, which categorizes by departments, but the University budget also lists by area of responsibility: Presidential Accounts, Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, Institutional Advancement and Finance and Administrative Personnel. A vice president might have something contained within their area of responsibility which might not follow the national chart structure, which is why there are two ways the budget is formatted, he said. Each of the nine academic college/school budgets are reported in a similar fashion. For example, the Hutson School of Agriculture has an area of responsibility budget of approximately $6.7 million. This number reflects the total budget for the college, combining public services such as the farms and the Breathitt Veterinary Diagnostic Center in Hopkinsville, Ky. and academic services, including faculty and staff salaries. The instructional budget for the Hutson School of Agriculture is almost $2.2 million a difference of almost $4.6 million which is made up primarily of faculty and staff salaries. The salary differences between faculty, staff and administrators can vary greatly for a number of reasons, including the position itself, education level, essentiality and for faculty, the

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The pie chart above illustrates the five University areas of responsibility within the education and general portion of the operating budget. *I.A. represents Institutional Advancement, one of the five areas. college in which they teach. Johnson said one of the most troubling items on the budget is salary. He said as a student it did not make sense to him that some within the University, who have the same education level, would have such a large variance in pay. I guess when you factor in the size of the college and the number of students within it the salary difference can begin to make more sense, he said. Its not the same thing across other areas of the University, coaches for instance, I dont see it as fair that coaches make more

money than anyone in the faculty or staff. Bonnie Higginson, vice president of Academic Affairs, said she could only speak about the academic nature of Murray State, but said the salaries among the faculty can vary for a number of reasons. She said the biggest determinant is what the professor would be worth in the job market. She said faculty in the Arthur J. Bauernfeind College of Business tend to have higher salaries because of what they are worth outside of the University. Some of the professors in business could make more outside of the University, she said. Don Robertson, vice president of Student Affairs, agreed with Higginson and said the market was the reason some faculty were paid more. Certain areas of employment pay more than others, he said. Scientists and doctors make more than teachers. In academia, certain disciplines pay more than others. Its a reflection of what field you are in. Its no different than the real world. A lot has to do with market and the supply and demand, based on where theyve taught, services they have done and notoriety. He said time served at the University could also have an impact on the variation in salaries. If you look at the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, probably every student on campus is going to take classes in that college because of gen. ed classes, Robertson said. Its going to have a larger faculty and more classes, so it will have a higher operating budget compared to

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TEAMS
From Page 1
Board of Regents at its Dec. 14 meeting. Tim Todd, dean of the Arthur J. Bauernfeind College of Business and chair of the colleges budget planning and review team, said the teams have been more successful than hed originally imagined. Were basically going through three steps, he said. Were prioritizing, looking to see if low performing programs need to be changed, were going through the budget to minimize the red ink, looking to see if we can innovatively change programs without damaging them and were looking to see if we can maximize the black ink, looking to provide more services which will show additional streams of revenue. Todd said the chairs within the school of business have been making their own recommendations, which the team is looking at before eventually making proposals to the provost and president. Were literally taking the budget and going line-by-line, he said. Were scrubbing the budget to see areas that might be cut. Were hoping we have strong recommendations to take the president in a month.

Tom Denton, vice president of Finance and Administrative Services, said there were several things the teams could look at in regard to lessening expenditures. He said one option might be looking at vacant salaried positions throughout the University. Out of the salaried positions in the budget, about 5 percent of them might be vacancies, he said But the vacancies on the academic side tend to stay in the budget longer. He said in previous years the academic side of the University has eliminated vacant positions to provide a source of funds, but only the positions that were empty for two or more years. He said the nonacademic salaried positions generally tended to fill quicker. Its a never-ending process, Denton said. Its difficult to maintain a static level of personnel. We have some vacancies year round and those will probably be looked at. Bonnie Higginson, vice president of Academic Affairs, said the budget was created earlier in the year and does not account for the positions that have since been filled. I would hope we dont sweep vacant lines, she said. Academic Affairs did that before, and we lost over $700,000. I hope that doesnt happen again, definitely not to that extreme.

ALCOHOL
From Page 1
coming days, as the city has begun the process of approving licenses and distributing them to the appropriate businesses. The state has to send its own ABC Administrators to check the sites where businesses have already applied, Clere said. Its a huge relay that can take anywhere from 30-45 days before the license is applied for and either approved or denied. Clere said administrators have not yet arrived to check on all of the convenience stores and gas stations in the area, as each passing day pushes some release dates later into the year. Because of the lengthy process and intricate litigation, Clere said it would probably be the first of the year before any packaged liquor stores or full taverns were created. Most of the applicants are playing a wait and see game, she said. They cant start building yet until they know theyve been approved. With eight retail package licenses (liquor stores) and seven tavern licenses (full bars) up for grabs in the city, Clere confirmed more parties

Edward Marlowe/The News

The first sale of packaged alcohol occurred Monday at 2:10 p.m. at the Five Star Marathon convenience store, located at Five Points in Murray.
have applied for licenses than are available, and she anticipated more applications to arrive over time. Beer licenses, however, can be provided to all stores with at least $5,000 in grocery retail who apply and are accepted, proving to be less competitive than retail and tavern licenses. Though she could not confirm the names of businesses and proprietors who have voiced their intent to apply, Clere did say 15 applications are currently on the table for retail package stores, seven more than is allowed in Murray. However, six applications have been filed for the tavern license, leaving at least one more available in the event no applications be rejected. With alcohol sales creeping up on the area, Clere shared some advice for students who are looking forward to the changing scene and availability of alcohol in Murray. Even though it is more accessible doesnt mean it wont be more enforced, she said. Just because we wont be waiting outside of every establishment doesnt mean we arent watching.

ATTENTION SENIORS!
DO YOU PLAN TO GRADUATE IN MAY 2013? IF SO YOU NEED TO APPLY FOR GRADUATION TODAY! May 2013 degree applications are due by December 1, 2012.
Log on to myGate Select the Academics tab Select the Apply to Graduate Link in the Student Links Channel

Questions? Email: msugraduation@murraystate.edu