Planning for next year's budget is coming to a head this month, and despite what administrators call one of the tightest years in some time, they say the University is holding relatively steady in its spending.
Factors like the slumping economy, increasing competition for resources and a desire to keep tuition low have all put pressure on this year's budget process, said Executive Vice President Tallman Trask.
"It's tight. It's tighter than it's been probably all the time I've been here," said Trask, who arrived at Duke in 1995.
The Board of Trustees is set to approve the budget for the 2003 fiscal year, which begins July 1, at its meeting the weekend of May 12. The document encompasses all the University's spending, from academics to support services.
Overall, the budget will be $1.2 billion, Trask said. He said the largest boosts will be in academics, spending for which will increase about 2.75 percent, and that other divisions may have slight increases or decreases.
Trask said administrative budgets will feel the largest pinch, but even then, he said the cuts mostly consist of tightening supplies and other discretionary items.
"At this point, it's much more a sort of reduction across the board in small things," Trask said. "We've set lower targets for [administrative budgets] than we ever have in the past, trying to make more money available for academic initiatives."
Spending from interest on Duke's endowment will increase 10 percent next year--the most it can rise in a single year--and many of the University's other revenue streams are holding steady. Trask said much of the budget pressure is coming from increased costs, especially for new buildings and academic initiatives.
Jim Roberts, vice provost for finance and administration, said the budget increase is historically low, even compared to recent years when academics saw 3.5 percent boosts. But he added that low inflation should make next year's budget comparable to previous years', and that spending levels are intact for most initiatives in Building on Excellence, the University's strategic plan.
Duke's schools are funded mostly through their own respective revenue streams, and Roberts said some schools have tighter budgets than others.
"I think we gave them tough targets, but everyone has met their targets," he said. "We've emerged from this process with all the budgets balanced."
Some schools will have small deficits. William Schlesinger, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, said the school will have about a $400,000 deficit next year, approximately 2 percent of its total budget. Arts and Sciences will have a deficit of about $1 million, or less than 1 percent of its budget.
Schlesinger said he would have liked to allocate more money next year for initial research projects, which he said could allow the school to compete more for grants.
"We're running a very tight budget here. There's no doubt about it," he said. "We're trying to hold expenses to as low a level as possible, so there's not a whole lot of new initiatives."
Some divisions that will see the fewest new dollars, or even experience cuts, will be support services, Trask said, including the Office of Information Technology, the Office of Human Resources and the Facilities Management Department.
Regis Koslofsky, director of facilities administration, said the small increase in the department's $60 million budget mostly will fund new buildings. Students, professors and staff should see no significant change in maintenance, he said.
"Overall, I think we could always use more money for quicker enhancements or to make good situations better, but in terms of keeping the buildings safe and comfortable, we're doing okay," he said.
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