August 3, 2001 UNT Inhouse publication: UNT funds faculty, staff raises without departmental budget cuts

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UNT funds faculty, staff raises without departmental budget cuts

Proposing increases to the UNT budget for the 2001-02 fiscal year, President Norval Pohl and Vice President for Finance and Business Affairs Phil Diebel say UNT can provide almost $4.4 million for faculty merit raises and state-mandated staff raises without cutting departmental budgets.

Diebel reports that this is "very good news in times of tight budgets."

In accordance with "budgeting themes" Pohl set to support his long-term vision for UNT, faculty and staff pay raises and promotions are the top priorities in the allocation of budget increases. They account for almost 50 percent of UNT's 2001-02 budget increase request of $8,784,639.

Both Pohl and Diebel cite increases in formula funding driven by enrollment growth along with the university's approach to energy conservation for creating leeway in the budgeting process.

According to Diebel, formula funding increases created by the university's growing undergraduate enrollment made additional money available for UNT's new budgetary initiatives.

In addition, he says, UNT's stringent program of energy management measures helped minimize cost increases that in turn exerted a positive influence on the budgeting process.

Ray McFarlane, UNT's physical plant director, estimates the university has reduced energy consumption by 34 percent from a 1981 baseline. That was the year UNT began its concentration on energy conservation.

An energy performance contract started in July 1997 and completed in April 1999 guaranteed a 26.7 percent savings from the 1996 energy baseline. In the past year, McFarlane reported savings of $1.2 million from the 1996 baseline.

Working from a Texas Association of State Senior College and University Business Officers utility cost survey, McFarlane calculates the university's 2000 energy costs to have been $2.60 per square foot. That figure places UNT's energy costs well below those at most public colleges and universities in Texas.

The UNT System Board of Regents will discuss and finally approve he 2001-02 budget and schedule of pay and other proposed increases at its Aug. 17 meeting. All budgetary items and proposals are subject to change until the regents give their approval.