FY 2022 Budget Update – June 28, 2021
Dear Colleagues:
Key takeaways:
- Our budget process is complete – see details at MyGeorgiaSouthern, under the heading of FY 2022 Budget Planning Documents.
- Our priority must always be our people and our mission of student success.
- Over $900,000 is being invested in faculty and staff salary market equity increases.
As communicated by emails and in various presentations throughout the academic year, our goal continues to be to engage our faculty and staff in a transparent budget prioritization, development, and implementation process. Remember, the timeline and process provided opportunities for each level of the institution to engage, and it required leadership to communicate prioritization decisions at each stage of the process — from departmental and unit discussions in August of 2020 to prioritization decisions at the college, major unit, and divisional levels, to the submission of our FY 2022 documents to the University System Office in November, and now, the end of June 2021, to implement our FY 2022 Budget. To that end, we received our FY 2022 Budget allocation from the System, have completed the FY 2022 budget prioritization and recommendations, and have provided the following document links via the MyGeorgiaSouthern Portal in the title called “Performance Excellence,” under the heading of FY 2022 Budget Planning Documents.
As you remember from previous communications, due to declines in enrollment and credit hour production from FY 2019 to FY 2020, Georgia Southern modeled a projected recurring allocation reduction of $2.29M beginning FY 2022. Accordingly, we set aside approximately $1.57M plus savings from an additional 8 vacant or retirement positions to identify the additional $720,000 reduction of recurring funds.
Our secondary process was to identify and prioritize new funding opportunities, should any additional funds be available. The prioritization of new funds followed three focus areas: the funding of new lines (or previously eliminated/frozen vacant lines) deemed critical to achieving our strategic goals; essential operational funds lost in recurring budget reductions deemed critical to the unit, department, or divisional success; and recurring funding of salary equity and/or merit salary increases (if appropriated by the state). Our priority must always be our people – our commitment to the recurring funding of promotion and tenure (P&T) of our faculty and, when available, recurring funding of salary market equity for faculty and staff.
The document shared with you shows the resulting available funds for investment for FY 2022 and their sources and the line-by-line prioritized needs that we will be investing in for FY 2022. This list of assessed needs includes nearly $2.6M of investments – including 4 returning faculty lines, 1 new faculty line, 4 returning staff positions, investment in our Office of Inclusive Excellence, recurring faculty salary increases awarded for P&T, and approximately $910,683 in faculty and staff salary equity increases and administrative support review.
Furthering the implementation of the FY 2020 salary studies, this investment of $341,653 increases salaries of staff who have been in their current position for 3+ years to 92% of the 1st quartile of the position pay band. For Faculty, the salary market equity investment of approximately $337,735 utilizing CIP code and rank assessed by our partner, Segal, elevated the minimum faculty salary to 83.995% of the CUPA median. These market equity salary increases, to be implemented July 1, 2021 (August 1, 2021 for 10 month Faculty), will impact 342 faculty and staff. In all cases, market equity increases are being applied to employees’ base FY 2021 salary. We will be updating the market equity studies for faculty and staff in the next fiscal year to guide us in future investments in salary market equity.
In addition, we conducted an Administrative Support Review to assess how support positions were distributed across the institution and to aid in the development of a position framework – standardizing position descriptions and assigning appropriate pay bands. Segal reviewed 168 administrative support positions were reviewed by Segal to ensure alignment with our staff market equity salary adjustments (minimum of the new position pay band or 3+ years of service in current position to 92% of the 1st quartile of the position pay band). Effective July 1, 2021, 98 of those positions will receive a salary adjustment totaling $231,295.
These investments are intentional and strategic as we have heard loud and clear from you that we must continue our efforts to invest in you, our people – putting into practice our belief that at Georgia Southern University, we are investing in our People…with a Purpose to transform lives…and Actions outlined in our new strategic plan – all aligned to empower us to grow ourselves so we can grow others.
Remember, there are only three possible sources for new recurring funding for new priorities: redirection of current resources, enrollment growth and/or a tuition increase for FY 2022 (for FY 2022 there will be no tuition or fee increases). These budgetary priorities were determined once we had a clearer picture of the FY 2022 landscape and benchmarked enrollment progress for fall 2021.
We are providing presentations to faculty, staff and students at their senate, council and association meetings and will keep everyone informed as there are other variables that may affect our FY 2022 recurring budget, including our final summer enrollment numbers and realized tuition revenue for FY 2021.
Questions specific to any of these reductions or new funding prioritizations should be addressed within your divisional leadership through your direct supervisor. I want to thank everyone who engaged in our transparent budget prioritization and implementation process that evidenced strategic and transparent decision-making. It is rewarding to again have the ability to continue our investment in you! We will begin this process again for FY 2023 in the next few months.
Sincerely,
Kyle
Last updated: 4/2/2022