Meanwhile, Back at the Budget Process
by Vince Durnan
We’ll take the lack of crowds storming our info sessions as a sign of tacit support. Maybe you’d prefer a few paragraphs of print instead:
We’ll take the lack of crowds storming our info sessions as a sign of tacit support. Maybe you’d prefer a few paragraphs of print instead:
The calendar for the process is as follows: back in November our Board’s finance committee took a preliminary look at the basics for next year in light of experience thus far in this year’s budget, framing a few scenarios for broader consideration. They also heard from the Board’s human resource committee about our health insurance projections and wage/salary trend lines. In early January the Board’s executive committee, comprising all the committee chairs and officers, considered those scenarios in light of the finance committee recommendation.
Then on Monday of this week the full Board conducted a summary discussion before endorsing the executive committee’s recommendation. And on February 1, re-enrollment contracts will electronically appear in the households of USN families. And thus a budget is born, snowstorm notwithstanding.
The component slices of the budget pie are as familiar as they are consistent in proportion—we devote about 2/3 of total expenditures to compensation for the hardworking people who make the school go each day, with the remaining 1/3 allocated to maintaining our similarly hardworking facilities, funding need-based financial aid, paying all our program expenses, supporting reserve accounts to replace items big and small as they depreciate, paying for our administrative office work, and picking up the diminishing debt service tab, in that order. Whew.
On the revenue side, the equation is simpler—9/10 of all dollars contributing toward our $24MM budget for 2016-17 come from tuition, with the other tenth being mostly Annual Fund, joined by a few percent from our growing endowment, and a miscellaneous bit from everything else, bookstore and cafeteria and summer programs inclusive. That’s our financial reality, neither cause for celebration nor imminent threat.
The particulars of our current circumstance, the context for our conversations, are as follows: we don’t need to close any unanticipated gaps, we live in persistently low-inflation times, and we see encouraging national and worrisome international trends with regard to economic recovery.
Closer to home, we still want to reward great work around here when we see it. And not to get wonky, but given our educational model we don’t see significant returns to capital—we rely on human interactions and not technological efficiency to create learning experiences. That is to say, education continues to cost more while computers and robots continue to cost less. It’s an existential challenge as we try to manage toward USN costs rising no faster than USN families’ incomes.
Closer to home, we still want to reward great work around here when we see it. And not to get wonky, but given our educational model we don’t see significant returns to capital—we rely on human interactions and not technological efficiency to create learning experiences. That is to say, education continues to cost more while computers and robots continue to cost less. It’s an existential challenge as we try to manage toward USN costs rising no faster than USN families’ incomes.
So the prudent course of action, given that we are committing to a certain fiscal reality for a budget year that begins next July and extends to June of 2017 (can you believe it?), looks only incrementally different from what we’re doing right now. We are not tapping the brakes as we did in 2008 and we are not blue sky optimists. The mindset is more evolutionary than revolutionary, to borrow from the lingo of our contemporary political debate landscape. But the discipline of working step by step, taking nothing for granted, is no less important. It contributes to our understanding of the big picture and the long view and merits our fullest attention.
Yours in dollars and sense,
Vince
PS. This afternoon (1-28-16) you're invited to the Payne Library Room at 3:30 for the second information session on the 2016-17 budget.
PS. This afternoon (1-28-16) you're invited to the Payne Library Room at 3:30 for the second information session on the 2016-17 budget.
More USN News
List of 3 news stories.
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Security Corner: Meet Sgt. Anthony Jones
Sgt. Anthony Jones joined University School of Nashville in November as a School Resource Officer, a certified police officer who is primarily assigned to a school and provides safety and security-related functions, including emergency response, safety training, traffic direction, and patrol functions.Read More -
Senior named UVA Jefferson Scholar
University of Virginia selected Margot Ross '24 to be a Jefferson Scholar. The highly selective scholarship includes the full cost of attending UVA for four years of study as well as numerous enrichment opportunities. It has been 16 years since a University School of Nashville senior last became a Jefferson Scholar.Read More -
UNISON Dance, USN Choir spring concert April 25
Dance and choral students will come together for their spring semester performances at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 25 in Durnan Auditorium.Read More
Contact
Edgehill Campus
2000 Edgehill Ave.
Nashville, TN 37212
Phone: 615-321-8000
Fax: 615-321-0889
Email: info@usn.org
River Campus
1200 County Hospital Road
Nashville, TN 37218
2000 Edgehill Ave.
Nashville, TN 37212
Phone: 615-321-8000
Fax: 615-321-0889
Email: info@usn.org
River Campus
1200 County Hospital Road
Nashville, TN 37218
USN Mission:
University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.
University School of Nashville models the best educational practices. In an environment that represents the cultural and ethnic composition of Metropolitan Nashville, USN fosters each student’s intellectual, artistic, and athletic potential, valuing and inspiring integrity, creative expression, a love of learning, and the pursuit of excellence.