Report of the Congress Budget Committee
April 24, 2006
Chair:
Members:
Jerry Calton, COBE
Iota Cabral, CHL; Rick Castberg, Grad Council liaison; Bill Heacox,
CAS; Helen Rogers, Library; Mike Shintaku, CAFNRM
The Congress Budget Committee met with VCAA Steve Hora on a weekly basis during
the month of April to prioritize and consolidate program change requests (PCRs) for
funding new academic initiatives in the 2007-2009 budget cycle. Ranking of PCRs was
based both on UH system budget “stocktaking” priorities and on program objectives
articulated in the UH-Hilo strategic plan. The following process was followed:

In consultation with PCR authors, some proposals were consolidated and
repackaged to improve their fit with system and university priorities. This was
done to increase prospects for approval after PCRs are forwarded for further
review at the system and legislative levels.

A spreadsheet was developed that listed each consolidated PCR, so as to give
each committee member the opportunity to indicate whether it met system and
university program objectives.

A second spreadsheet was developed that showed the funding requested for each
PCR, as well as the program objective committee members considered was most
relevant to the PCR. Members were asked to rank each PCR as high, medium, or
low in priority.

A third spreadsheet was developed that showed PCR rankings, based on
committee member evaluations. Only PCRs that achieved a ranking of high or
medium were moved forward at this time, given spending limitations.

On Friday, April 21, Jerry Calton and Rick Castberg (representing Congress Chair
Michaud, who was off-island) met with Vice Chancellors Bill Chen and Steve
Hora to discuss some relatively minor adjustments they had made in faculty PCR
rankings, based on their perception of certain “political realities” in the budgeting
process. They felt this was necessary because final decisions on funding will be
made at the system and legislative level. Such adjustments will, hopefully,
increase the likelihood of success in achieving a higher level of overall funding.
Rankings may be adjusted further if some items are funded during this year’s
budget process that is currently under way in the state legislature.

UH-Hilo Chancellor Tseng’s budget stocktaking presentation this week on Oahu
was based largely on the above steps. Power Point slides of this presentation will
be available for faculty review. (Location to be announced.)
Conclusion and Recommendations:
1. The level of faculty engagement in the budget process this year has been higher
than at any time in UH-Hilo’s recent history. University administrators, and
particularly VCAA Hora, are to be commended for opening up the budget process
to faculty scrutiny and dialogue.
2. The process of faculty engagement should begin earlier, in Fall semester 2006.
This should commence with a more visible (or vociferous) call for PCRs from all
academic programs. Better guidelines for how PCRs should be developed need to
be promulgated and distributed widely. Some PCRs submitted this year seemed
rather informal and incomplete. Some even lacked a budget and spending
rationale and were submitted as e-mails!
3. A more open and coordinated discussion and ranking of PCR proposals should be
conducted at the college level. A preliminary consolidation and ranking of PCRs
at the college level would increase transparency and assure that a wider range of
faculty opinions is incorporated into the decision process. An earlier start to the
budget process would make this suggestion more feasible.
4. PCRs based on memoranda of understandings between the VCAA and academic
programs that arise out of the program review process should be given a higher
budget priority. This would strengthen the linkage between the program review
and the budgeting process, an important accreditation consideration.
5. The size and membership of the Congress Budget Committee should be
considered carefully. This year we went with a “lean” ad hoc committee, with
only one representative from each major academic unit and without a student
representative. This was done primarily to make the scheduling of meetings
easier. Arguably, CAS was proportionally underrepresented on the committee.
On the other hand, there was a remarkably low level of partisan rancor on the
committee and decisions were made (in the chairperson’s humble opinion) in the
interest of serving the needs of the university as a whole.