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In keeping with my commitment to communicate frequently with you on matters of campus importance, I want to share with you directly discussions this week among the Deans, Faculty Senate Leadership and University Administration.
As we enter into the last several months of our academic calendar and our fiscal budget year, we continue to see very productive results. Our vision and commitment to excellence in discovery, teaching, and service at Case remains strong. I am continually impressed by the quality and passion from our students, faculty, and staff. In 2003 the Board of Trustees approved our commitment to areas of growth and opportunity for Case. This investment in areas of research, visibility, revenue, and campus environment included operating in a planned deficit for five years and returning to a balanced budget by 2008.
We should all celebrate the strides in our cutting-edge research, including new faculty recruitments. Our increased student enrollment and curricular innovation are gaining great momentum. The implementation of our Campus Master Plan is beginning to take shape with renovations and demolition of existing buildings, classrooms, and laboratories and with the transformation of our undergraduate living-learning environment with the opening of the Village at 115 and athletic facilities this past fall.
At the same time, we have kept a watchful eye on the financial environment in which we operate. We, along with other leading research institutions around the country, have seen some changes in areas such as federal research funding and philanthropic contributions that have resulted in lower revenues than were projected three years ago; and, there is no solid evidence that those trends are going to be turned around in the immediate future. Those are indicators that we cannot ignore; in fact we had to address this head-on last fall when we took a mid-year course correction that resulted in $17.2 million savings. Together we faced that challenge, we made some changes, and we are able to achieve our budget goal for this year.
While we remain focused on fulfilling our vision, we believe that we have to do that in the context of the financial realities we face and make bold moves in our budget planning process now. Not doing so would only diminish our energies and long term resources in a manner that would not serve Case well, either now or in the future.
As a result, we have determined that we need to return to a balanced budget operation now for FY07 (July 2006 - June 2007). While we are still in the process of working with the leadership on the financial models, we expect that we will need to make expense reductions and changes in the way we do our business and recommend a balanced budget for FY07 to the Board of Trustees in June to put us on a solid financial platform to move forward in FY08 and beyond.
To achieve this, we have asked the Deans and the University Administration to develop the best ways of meeting the twin objectives of continuing the positive direction of the vision, while reducing expenses in the context of our revenue realities, to achieve a balanced budget. In doing so we have established several guiding principles:
- Avoid reductions that detract from the student and faculty experience
- Emphasis on our human capital versus, non-salary expenditures
- Avoid freezes on promotions and key hires
- Continue investment in areas of revenue generation
- Ensure accountability for areas of responsibility
- Leverage resources across colleges and departments
Over the next two months we will establish mechanisms for discussion and opportunities for your involvement. John Anderson, Provost, and Hossein Sadid, Chief Financial Officer, will talk in more details about these issues and the implications in the schools and administrative areas.
I recognize that these challenges are not easy, but I am absolutely confident that together we can make the necessary changes and continue our commitment to our core mission to have a transformational impact on all who teach, learn, discover, and work here, so we are prepared and engaged to serve humanity.
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