UNIVERSITY OF MAINE SYSTEM FY2004-05 BIENNIUM REQUEST
Enhancing Access, Quality, and Engagement
The FY04-05 Biennium Plan has been developed to address Maine’s most important educational and economic needs. If fully implemented, the Plan would provide the resources necessary for UMS to help improve Maine’s economy and the quality of life of its people through education, research, and outreach.
Priorities
The Biennium Plan features three principal objectives, each of which would provide broad benefits to Maine people:
- Increasing access to public higher education by reducing the financial obstacles – i.e., constantly increasing tuition and fees; inadequate student financial aid – that discourage young adults and older individuals already in the workforce from enrolling in college.
- Increasing the quality of public higher education by improving essential technologies, facilities, and resources that are needed to serve UMS’s 33,000 students.
- Increasing engagement and partnerships with public schools and state government; expansion of university-based Research & Development; and broader public service and outreach efforts, all to help build and strengthen Maine’s economic foundation.
Assumptions
The FY2004-2005 budget request includes specific actions to accomplish those objectives. The Plan is built on several key budget assumptions:
- UMS will not increase tuition for Maine undergraduate students
- UMS will reduce or eliminate the "gap" in student financial aid
- UMS will take the lead role in a long-term statewide partnership with Maine’s public schools and education-related agencies
- UMS enrollment will increase 2% in each of the next fiscal years
- Employees will receive compensation increases and will pay a greater share of health care benefits
- The UMS share of System-provided employee health care costs, scheduled to increase 18% during FY04 under the existing contract, will continue to increase comparably under the next agreement
Ongoing Cost-Saving Measures
UMS universities and the System have taken several actions to reduce spending, keep costs down, and create new efficiencies in order to partially offset the magnitude of this state appropriation request. Examples of those cost-saving measures are:
- Revising budgeting process to enhance strategic decision-making
- Holding the line on existing faculty and staff levels
- Continuing to bring employee health plan in line with current cost containment practices (as determined through collective-bargaining process)
- Implementation of a more efficient administrative
computing system which will:
o Redefine business processes
o Improve student services
o Provide web-enabled self service
o Provide a strategic advantage in recruiting and fund raising - Reduction of energy costs through conservation programs and practices
- Increases in System-wide development efforts and marketing strategies to enhance fundraising and enrollment growth
- Issuance of University debt at lower variable rates to reduce debt service costs
- Enhancement of collaborative activities across the University of Maine System including bulk purchasing initiatives, shared staffing, System library initiatives, and establishing standard administrative processes and practices
- Reduction in non-essential purchases (travel, advertising, consulting, equipment, etc.)
- A moratorium on increasing the current level of UMS-financed debt
Budget Request
To support these priorities, UMS requests the following increases to its current State appropriation:
FY2004
State appropriation request $22.9 million (12.9%)
FY2005
$34.5
million (17.2%)