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Meeting of the Academic Chairs & Directors Council
February 20, 2009 Plaza Room, Administrative Center Attendance sign-in sheet attached.
Chair Kathleen Kilway welcomed the group and led introductions.
Provost Hackett:
Our goal today is to get information out about the budget cuts and the request from President
Forsee for expense reductions. There has been confusion caused by not knowing the size of cuts for this
fiscal year and whether Governor’s plan will pass the legislature. Our situation may be better in the
short term with the passage of the Economic Stimulus package, but the long term is still bleak. We need
to cut expenses to be healthy in the long run by being pro-active and conserving resources wherever
possible now. Academic Chairs and Directors are the front line communicators to faculty. Please pass
information from this meeting on to the faculty in your departments.
At one of the upcoming Academic Chairs and Directors meetings we will focus on the leadership
role of Academic Chairs and Directors at UMKC. On one hand you represent faculty and on the other
you represent the Dean/administration. There are different expectations for you from faculty, deans
and administrators. At the meeting we will explore the role of Department Chair/Director as an
academic leader with a broad university view.
Chancellor Morton:
Leadership is about serving other people by providing to them information they don’t have that could
help them do their job. We ask the Academic Chairs and Directors to be persons who help provide
clarity to faculty members in the departments.
Budget context: our situation now is not about a 1 time problem
We must position ourselves so we are less vulnerable in the long run.
Of our $300 million budget, $84 million comes from the state.
Looking at 15-20-25% cuts to that $84 million, even if the cut is 7-12% - that is significant for us.
The Governor’s plan not to cut higher ed has not passed the legislature – there are issues
For 2010, if we stay at the 2009 budget level and do not increase tuition and fees, that is a cut.
Withholding from the state as a one-time withhold for the current fiscal year could be up to 5%, or $4.1
million of this year’s budget. How are we dealing with this?
The hiring freeze began in November – we are absorbing attrition. In December/January, 24
persons left the University. Most were lower-paid individuals, but a Deputy Chancellor also left and will
not be replaced. We have hired 21 individuals. Thirteen of those we were already committed to hiring
before the freeze began. The impact will be to keep the total cost of salaries/wages down. If we stay on
this trajectory, we will keep the total spending rate down. The money spent to replace employees
cannot exceed the money saved from attrition.
The university cannot expect to continue a hiring freeze for long without damage. The solution
is to build up reserves so we can do strategic hiring in the future, re-think how we go about hiring so
that we focus on high priorities.
President Forsee said at yesterday’s town hall meeting that he believes more strongly day by
day that furloughs will not be necessary. That’s the good news.
Expense reductions are another way we are dealing with the expected budget withholding. We
are looking for a net benefit from savings. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money. Use
judgment about what opportunities you can use to “significantly reduce” travel rather than thinking that
it has to be completely eliminated. These decisions should be made in the academic units. The
Chancellor and Provost can question things and ask for more information or justification, but they
should not make all the decisions on individual cases.
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Externally funded GRAs and GTAs have been approved. They are being tracked, but not
reviewed on a case-by-case basis. Any position 100% funded by a grant is approved. There have been
mass approvals of pools of these kinds of hires.
Question: Will money saved in the academic units be taken away from the academic units and put into
the general operating budget? Also, will grant money (Federal dollars) be taken away from the
academic units? This has happened in the past. Can you give us a fair assurance that funds like research
incentive funds, PI funds, funds from frozen searches are safe from “poaching”?
No funds are being swept now. We believe that we have the money to pay for the probable 5%
withhold this fiscal year without coming to the academic units for additional funds. If, however, there is
a bigger withhold this year, we will have to have a campus conversation about how we are going to pay
for that. We can’t address questions about specific pots of money now, at this meeting - those
questions would have to be part of the conversation if we have a surprisingly higher amount of
withholding from the state for this fiscal year.
Question: Will money that is saved by reducing expenses in an academic unit stay in that academic unit
or will it be taken for a central savings pool?
The intention is to have expense savings in the units stay in the units to make them less
vulnerable in the times ahead. The academic units would decide how to use those savings.
A sizeable amount of unfunded commitments have been made over the years. Some are 1-time
expenses, some are longer term. As an institution we will have to address how to pay down these
unfunded commitments. We will have to solve these problems together and the intent will be to
convince each part of the institution to come up with ways to participate.
Suggestion: The majority of faculty members are taking these problems in stride. They are continuing
to teach, do research and service. Please compliment them on this more often.
Question: There are 178 full-time faculty in the College of Arts and Sciences - that’s only 2 or 3 more
than there were in 1978, when the whole administration fit into offices in Scofield Hall. There are only
1,500 more students now than there were in 1978. Why has there been an explosion of administration
over the same period of time? Are you looking carefully at that? The faculty would like to see a white
paper that shows how all administrative staff members are fulfilling the mission of research/teaching
and service. The faculty wants to be sure that the administration understands that the same standards
apply to them and that this kind of inquiry is going on. Hiring faculty seems to be by accident when
someone leaves, but administrators are hired at will.
The Support Costs Review Committee, part of the University Budget Committee, is looking at
this. The work of the committee has been slower than hoped, but data is being gathered and
benchmarking has begun. The Faculty Senate Budget Committee is participating. The benchmarking
data will lead to further administrative re-engineering and greater transparency.
Question: It appears that some academic units are hiring more than others. How can we get more
information about who is being hired and who is not?
Information about expense reductions in each academic unit is being gathered. Different
schools have different issues and strategies. Some schools are doing better with long-term planning and
can reinvest within themselves more readily than other schools. To pass along a rumor or inaccurate
information in the current climate is more damaging than usual. Make an effort to discover the facts
about a statement before passing it along.
Question: In the strategic planning initiative that is going on now is an effort being made to recognize
and adjust for our probably ongoing financial problems? Have the goal statements been adjusted to
address where funds will come from so that they are realistic, and if so, doesn’t this create hidden
agendas?
The strategic planning process is completely transparent; all minutes are available online at this
website: https://www.umkc.edu/strategicplanning/index.cfm The draft strategic plan will be posted
later in March and many opportunities are being planned for faculty/staff and student feedback and
discussion at Town Hall and other types of meetings across campus in late March and early April.
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Question: There is a lack of clarity on the use of restricted funds. Can we use them or not?
If a department really needs to do something and the money is there to use, go ahead and use
your best judgment. But all money is green and we need to save it as much as possible for future
contingencies. If it is a question of spend it or lose it, of course spend it.
Question: If a grant includes funds to give a salary increase, and the money would be lost if it is not
spent on the salary increase, are we allowed to have those increases?
The Provost and Chancellor can’t answer specific grant funding questions. A general guideline
would be to take the source into account - if you can off-load something that would have been paid by
state funds onto grant funds, do so. Basically, use good judgment. Remember to take into account that
we are not just looking at short-term fixes. We must always consider long-term vulnerabilities.
We can’t afford to cut hiring too dramatically for too long. Think about possibilities for revenue
generation and student retention as ways to finance hiring in your academic unit.
A data room is being set up that will help provide information. There will be 4 screens: one for
tracking revenue, one for tracking salary data, one for tracking expenses and one to relate all the data to
our accountability measures. These tools will show us how we are doing and point to the areas where
we are being successful as well as to those areas that we could improve.
Question: What is being done to communicate with students? They are worried that programs will be
closed before they get a chance to finish their degrees.
There are no plans to close programs at the present time. This does not mean that no programs
will ever be closed. Students in current programs should not worry that they will be unable to finish
their degrees.
Summer School
We are working on a plan for summer school that promises incentives to the units. Money will
come back to the units and university-wide marketing will be provided. UMKC is missing opportunities
to generate revenue with summer school. Units could work together to create course and program
offers that would be successful. As Chairs, you have an opportunity to talk with faculty in your
departments about summer school offerings that could generate additional revenue for your academic
unit. We are benefiting from the economic downturn in that students are leaving more expensive
private schools and returning to public universities. In this climate summer school presents more of an
opportunity for us than ever before
We are also working on de-coupling tuition within UM and outside UM, and expanding the
Metro rate further into Kansas (maybe to Lawrence) - for both graduate and undergraduate students.
De-coupling means de-coupling within UMKC as well.
Suggestion: There is an air of no confidence on campus. There have been fast and furious happenings.
We would like the Chancellor and Provost to communicate with us as much as possible, share
information as soon as possible and help us find incentives to keep on going. One time a year the
faculty would appreciate a scholarly speech in regard to what the university is about. This would be a
good event to have for in-coming students to convey the positives about the university and it would
reinforce the faculty and staff. It would also be a good thing to have more in-person events like Town
Halls with the Chancellor and Provost.