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At the September 1998 faculty meeting, the President announced the creation of the Planning and Budget Committee (PBC). Composed of four administrators appointed by the President and four elected faculty, the PBC is charged with three principal tasks: (1) to create and recommend to the President a balanced budget for the following fiscal year that is linked to the strategic plan, (2) to monitor the implementation of the strategic plan, and (3) to update and review all aspects of planning and budgeting. After a full-day retreat in October devoted to the strategic plan attended by the Board of Trustees, the SPC, and the PBC, the Board approved the plan with its five goals and provisional initiatives, with an agreement that the final details would be ratified at the next Board meeting in February 1999. By its action, the Board authorized the implementation of the strategic plan.
An ideal situation would have been to have the plan in place, complete with supporting initiatives and activities, prior to the start of the budgeting process. But the 1998-1999 academic year was a year of transition, a time of learning by doing. The PBC had to prepare a balanced budget while simultaneously fleshing out the strategic plan with a set of supporting initiatives and activities. Budgeting that first year could not await the completion of the strategic plan or even the full development of a formal planning process.
In the fall of 1998, the PBC established five Goal Teams that recommended to the PBC a refined list of initiatives and a manageable number of initiative implementing activities. The Goal Teams also recommended metrics to measure progress in achieving activities as well as persons or groups who would be accountable for implementing the activities. During the subsequent years in the five-year planning cycle, each Goal Team would continue to monitor the goal assigned to it, reporting the results to the PBC. The President and the Provost appointed the faculty and staff members of the Goal Teams. Faculty members were appointed with the recommendation and the advice of the Executive Committee of the Faculty. At a meeting in January 1999, the Goal Teams presented their recommendations to the PBC. The PBC, in consultation with the President, reviewed the recommended activities, selecting some for priority implementation and funding. In February, the Board of Trustees approved the entirety of the strategic plan, including initiatives and activities. The Board also authorized the expenditure of $242,000 to support strategic planning activities aimed at: improving retention, recruiting more transfer students, reviewing the curriculum, refurbishing spaces for special-interest housing, employing a webmaster, and improving selected classrooms and dormitories.
During the remainder of the spring, the PBC devoted its time to two issues: benchmarking and reaching an agreement on the details of the formal process and procedures for planning. With regards to benchmarking, the PBC agreed on a list of comparison schools. In the fall of 1999, the President appointed an "environmental scanning group" made up of faculty and staff experts on a variety of external issues such as health care, inflation, and state and federal legislation. Their task is to keep the President and the PBC informed of external factors that might impinge on the strategic plan.
Through the summer of 1999 and into the fall semester, the PBC worked on refining its procedures. However, even with a more clearly defined timetable, the budgeting process fell behind in November. Consequently, there was not enough time for a full discussion of the major strategic issues, some of which had to be decided in a rather hurried and unsatisfactory manner in order to meet budget deadlines. In the spring of 2000, the PBC returned to its discussion of procedures and moved its timeline forward to allow for fuller discussion in the budgeting process.
The PBC also devoted its time to examining comparative data from the College's peer institutions. Though these data do not support precise conclusions, they suggest: a) that the College is adequately funded for its present level of operation; however, realizing the goals of the Strategic Plan will require a considerably larger endowment; b) that the college devotes a smaller percentage of its budget to instructional costs than do peer institutions; and c) that the number of faculty and staff per student is comparable to institutions whose financial resources substantially exceed those of Randolph-Macon.
In August of 1999, the PBC held its first retreat. It included the President's Cabinet, the PBC, and the chairs of the five Goal Teams. Discussion focused on the accomplishments of the past year and the PBC's reasons for its funding decisions. Following the retreat, the Goal Teams revised their lists of initiatives and submitted them to PBC for consideration for the 2000-2001 budget. Since many thought that discussing in August budgetary decisions made in the preceding January was difficult, the PBC met with the Goal Teams in April of 2000 to discuss with them the reasons for its funding decisions. Consequently, the retreat in August of 2000 was devoted to reviewing the year's accomplishments and assessing the degree to which the initiatives that have been undertaken have helped to realize the basic goals of the Strategic Plan.
With two years of experience, the PBC and the Goal Teams found that the budgeting process worked more smoothly in 2000-2001. The annual cycle of events was followed. A significiant portion of time during the fall was devoted to the major strategic issue, financial aid and student quality. Thereafter, the PBC reviewed and prioritized the funding requests from the Goal Teams. The budget process was concluded in January, and the concluding discussion between the Goal Teams and the PBC occurred in April
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