An expected $431,000 budget deficit at the Nicholas School of the Environment is forcing administrators to consider new ways to increase revenue and to cut expenses.
School of the Environment Dean William Schlesinger said balancing the budget will be one of the top issues this week when the school's Board of Visitors arrives. He hopes to increase revenue in two ways--through higher enrollment and increased grant funds.
Schlesinger said enrollment in the master's of environmental management is 20 percent less than originally expected when the school was founded 10 years ago. The difference between projected tuition revenue and actual revenue is the largest component of the deficit.
Specifically, Schlesinger has tried to increase the pool of applicants by visiting a number of undergraduate colleges this year and recruiting prospects for the MEM program himself.
A bigger applicant pool would allow the school to accept more students of a higher caliber. The school's admittance rate is currently 70 to 80 percent, much less selective than other professional schools at the University. Schlesinger said although greater selectivity allows for more qualified students, job placement and demand for environmental experts is so high, the school should accommodate more students.
He also thought the school's faculty could accommodate more research grants.
"[Grants] could be significantly higher," he said. "We don't have the lowest [grant per faculty member total], but there are opportunities there, without making them feel like grant-mungering machines, to do more than they're doing."
Provost Peter Lange noted that the school is still young and that one of Schlesinger's challenges as the school's second dean is to find innovative ways to increase the level of grants.
"We're working quite aggressively with them," he said. "It's still relatively underendowed.... One of the things understood when Schlesinger came in was that [the school would] not only restore their financial base in the MEM program, but we would have to work on other ways to increase revenues, including grant activity."
Schlesinger said his approach to cutting expenses would be more piece-meal.
"I hope to patch together savings where we can," he said. The school is currently negotiating with Auxiliary Services to have them take care of the Marine Lab's book store, dining and facilities.
Schlesinger said the annual budget for the school is, most broadly, $25 million, but about $10 million of that is direct grant activity--money that comes in and is spent.
He said the remaining revenue totals about $15 million, but that he expects expenses to be $17 million, a $2 million mismatch.
Because of funds designated for the school from its endowment, the deficit is much smaller, less than half a million dollars.
Nevertheless, Schlesinger said his goal is to increase revenue and cut spending so that those funds can remain untouched, left to build the endowment.
James Roberts, vice provost for finances, said the school has had budget issues in the past, specifically with the Marine Lab. "There was a period of years when the Marine Lab got a lot of our attention. I think we've made some adjustments there that have made that operate on a more even keel. The work in the current year has more to do with increasing enrollments," he said.
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