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President's Update on Meredith's 2009-10 Budget

To the Meredith Community:

At the outset of the budget development process this year, I made a commitment to keeping it as open and transparent as possible. As part of this commitment, the college-wide budget committee held two budget forums earlier today to seek input and constructive criticism from faculty, staff and students on our work to date.

As you reflect on the facts and figures we shared with you today, it is important to note that Meredith’s overall financial picture remains solid. Since 2005, we have been aggressively pursuing our strategic vision to become a nationally recognized women’s college. We have completed the most successful campaign in Meredith’s history, raising more than $41.5 million, made strategic investments in a student housing complex and a new athletics facility, expanded our international studies program, added successful new graduate programs and made significant progress toward bringing faculty and staff salaries to the median of peer institutions. The steps we proposed today will allow Meredith to achieve a balanced budget for 2009-10 without tapping into our reserves so that we will remain strong.

On behalf of the budget committee, I thank all of you who were able to attend today for the thoughtful questions you asked, the passion you exhibited for Meredith and the creative ideas you shared.

To ensure that anyone who was not able to attend has equal access to the information, I felt it important to summarize what was presented during the campus forums.

We shared in broad strokes our estimates of revenue, priorities for budget increases, and ideas for budget reductions. At this point in the budget development process, the budget committee is projecting that revenue for 2009-10 will be slightly less than the revenues outlined in the final 2008-09 budget.

Priorities and Existing Requirements on the 2009-10 Budget
  • In recognition of how the economy is affecting our students and their families, we believe we will need to invest $1.3 million in additional financial assistance for new and continuing students. We also plan to limit next year’s tuition increase to 4%, one of the smallest increases Meredith has had in the last few years.
  • We also need to build into the budget an additional $500,000 in contingency funds, $300,000 in additional facilities reserve funds and $180,000 toward the new athletics field now under construction.
  • The institution has also seen its health insurance and utility costs rise each year for the last several years. We anticipate needing to budget additional funds to cover continued increases in these areas.
The committee also shared the following proposed budget reductions for 2009-10.

Proposed Reductions
  • Reduce all equipment, furniture and travel budgets (with the exception of travel for recruiting, fundraising and athletic team competition) by 50% for next year.
  • Reduce the College’s contribution to employee retirement accounts from 7.5% to 5%
  • Continue to allow any lapsed salary to accrue centrally rather than allowing individual divisions to spend those funds.
  • Implement a salary freeze for 2009-10, which would mean no merit, cost of living or other salary increases for employees.
    • After factoring in all of these proposed reductions, the budget committee still needs to identify just over $2.1 million in reductions to achieve a balanced budget. We are recommending that each division absorb a percentage of this cut, with the goal of maintaining the overall educational experience for students and minimizing as much as possible the effects on full time faculty and staff positions. This percentage of cuts will be in proportion to the amount each division represents in the total budget. We anticipate that the normal process for faculty promotion, tenure and sabbatical will continue as usual.

    Timeline and Next Steps

    The budget committee will continue to meet for the next several weeks to consider your input, review additional data, refine our projections and prepare the final budget that will be presented to the Board of Trustees for approval in early June. On April 17, in two additional campus forums, the budget committee will present this budget to the Meredith community.

    In the meantime, you are again invited to share your thoughts and ideas with me or other members of the committee: Jane Barnes, Kristi Eaves-McLennan, Susan Fisher, Cindy Godwin, Anne Henderson, Jean Jackson, Emily King, Lori Miller, Allen Page, Nicole Pulley and Bill Wade.

    These are difficult conversations to have as a campus and difficult decisions for the budget team to make. Just as Meredith has endured countless other challenges in its 110-year history, our thoughtful decision making will help ensure that the College remains in a strong position to endure the challenges that the global economic situation presents.

    Sincerely,
    Maureen A. Hartford
    President


    Posted March 13, 2009.

    Date Submitted: 2009-03-13


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