April 18, 2019 Minutes

President's Budget Advisory Committee

April 18, 2019

MEMBERS PRESENT

STAFF PRESENT

GUESTS PRESENTS

MEMBERS ABSENT

Agenda

1. Call to Order and Welcom
2. Approval of the Agenda and Minutes: February, 2019
3. Budget Forum Feedback
4. Cost Allocation Plan
5. OpenBook
6. Announcements for the Good of the Order

I. CALL TO ORDER AND WELCOME

Provost and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs, Lisa Vollendorf, welcomed the committee and began the meeting at 8:30 am.

II. APPROVAL OF THE AGENDA AND MINUTES

Vollendorf introduced the agenda and asked if there were any additions. Hearing none, Vollendorf requested a motion to approve the minutes of the February 7^th meeting.  Minutes were approved unanimously.

III. BUDGET FORUM FEEDBACK

(Please see the April 18^th agenda packet for related documents)

The committee discussed the Spring 2019 Campus Budget Forum which occurred on March 12^th, 2019. Although this forum had lower attendance than the others, the majority of people who attended stayed to give feedback at the roundtable discussions. The future forums will be adjusted from two hours to an hour and a half to more effectively use the time allotted and hopefully improve attendance. There was discussion about how to improve marketing to faculty by mentioning the forum more frequently to Academic Senate and sub-committees of Academic Senate. The committee was pleased with the feedback from the roundtable discussions and can see that the feedback is evolving as budget knowledge is improved across campus.

IV. COST ALLOCATION PLAN

(Please see the April 18^th agenda packet for related documents)

Laura Lupei presented the new cost allocation plan methodology to the committee. This past year the University Budget and Planning Office was tasked with reviewing the campus Cost Allocation Plan because the methodology had not been reviewed for a number of years. Executive Order 1000 ensures that costs incurred in the CSU Operating Fund for services provided to other CSU Funds and Auxiliary Organizations are properly recovered. At Sonoma State the following entities are considered campus partners for the purpose of EO1000: Campus Housing, Transportation and Parking Services, the School of Extended and International Education, Student Health Center, Counseling and Psychological Services, Campus Life, Green Music Center Performance Fund, Sonoma State University Foundation, Associated Students, and Sonoma State Enterprises. The current cost recovery plan recovered costs for utilities, facilities services, rent, network security and communications, CMS, institutional support, and executive management. In order to create the new methodology the University Budget and Planning Office formed a task force with stakeholders from the campus partners and various working groups with subject matter experts for each service to review all of the charges.

The calculation for the current methodology utilized the prior year budgeted percentage of revenue and square footage as inputs to calculate the cost for each campus partner. For example, if Housing collected 18% of campus revenue then housing would pay 18% of payroll costs. There were many challenges with the current methodology because the calculations were based off of revenue rather than actuals which was not capturing the true cost to the University Operating Fund. The current methodology also did not allow the campus partners to plan or have any control of the costs to their unit. The new cost allocation methodology is primarily based off of transactional data. The transactional approach allows auxiliary and self-supports to identify what they are being charged for and will give them control over making decisions that will affect the charges to their units. The new transactional methodology will also ensure the Operating Fund is appropriately reimbursed for the actual costs incurred. The new methodology includes costs for all the same services as the old methodology but broken out to be more specific. Institutional support was broken out to include Accounts Payable, Contracts and Procurement, Seawolf Service Center, Budget and Finance, and Human Resources. The charges for information technology expanded to include workstation support in addition to network and CMS.

The charges for each campus partner has changed under the new methodology with the majority of the charges decreasing. It is clear looking at the old methodology there were areas which had been overcharged and the new methodology has corrected that and made the charges more transparent to the campus partners. Recovered costs are decreased by $3M in total from the old methodology to the new methodology which will need to be absorbed by the Operating Fund budget. Cabinet supports the new methodology and has approved a five year implementation plan where the campus partners pay an additional 20% of the difference between the old plan and the new methodology each year.

The committee was very pleased with the new methodology and the level of transparency the plan provides. Units will be able to make operating decisions which control their budgets and places the responsibility on the campus partners which the committee found very encouraging. The new cost allocation plan is moving the University further towards strategic budgeting.

V. OPENBOOK

(Please see the April 18^th agenda packet for related documents)

Lupei showed the committee a new software that is being implemented called OpenBook. OpenBook is a public facing component of the Questica budgeting software which provides reports for the campus to access. The reports currently on OpenBook mimic ones that have been presented to the campus during the budget forums. All the graphs portrayed on OpenBook have drill down capability giving the campus more detail on the University’s budgeted funds. OpenBook will be made available to the campus once more reports are added and refined and approved by campus leadership.

VI. ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR THE GOOD OF THE ORDER

The committee congratulated and applauded Associated Student Vice President of Finance Christina Gamboa on her upcoming graduation!

Vollendorf adjourned the meeting at 9:30 am. 
Minutes prepared by Hayley Avery.