Inside Iowa State

April 17, 2009

Budget planning, waiting continue

by Anne Krapfl

Budget planning for the next fiscal year continues on campus, as does the wait for firm funding levels from the state Legislature.

"The work hasn't slowed down," said associate vice president for budget and planning Ellen Rasmussen. "It's all preliminary at this point, but we have assigned target reductions and we're continuing to plan with them."

She said that by April 24, executive vice president and provost Elizabeth Hoffman would wrap up her annual planning meetings about the FY10 budget with the colleges, vice presidents and top-level administrative units.

Current legislation, not yet passed by both houses of the Legislature, includes a $38.8 million reduction in the education appropriation. For Iowa State, that would correspond to approximately a 13.9 percent reduction in that funding stream. University units, especially those whose budgets include other revenue sources -- such as tuition or research indirect cost recovery funds, could be looking at reductions less than that.

Rasmussen said budget reduction targets distributed last week to ISU units remain preliminary ones and will be adjusted as the Legislature arrives at budget decisions.

Wild card

Rasmussen said federal stimulus funds are "the wild card in this planning process." Gov. Chet Culver's revised FY10 budget, completed April 3, would send one-time federal stimulus funds to the regent universities. However, it's not clear yet how much Iowa State would receive or how those funds would be spread over the next two fiscal years (FY10 and FY11).

"Key to that proposal is that they're one-time funds," Rasmussen said. "They would give us some time to plan for a more orderly transition to the FY11 budget or beyond."

Timeline

President Gregory Geoffroy will make an initial budget presentation to the state Board of Regents at its April 30 meeting in Cedar Falls. Rasmussen said the university's comprehensive but preliminary budget will be shared with the regents at the June 11 meeting in Ames, with final approval anticipated at the Aug. 5 meeting.

"It's all preliminary at this point, but we have assigned target reductions and we're continuing to plan with them."

Ellen Rasmussen, associate vice president for budget and planning