Committee continues to examine Responsibility Center Management

A 27-member committee led by the finance and business affairs office has been working since December to design a model and implementation strategy for Responsibility Center Management that could work at UNT.

RCM is a decentralized approach to financial management designed to give more areas across campus greater control and responsibility for the university's budget process, while also making the budget process more transparent.

Under an RCM model, a responsibility center (a college or school, vice presidential or auxiliary unit) could keep a significant portion of the funds it generates instead of having all revenues flow through a centralized university budget.

The work of the committee, including its decisions, background files and presentations, can be found online at www.unt.edu/president/initiatives/rcm2.htm.

"The committee has adopted a set of guiding principles for the UNT RCM model, a revenue structure and a process for assessing administrative overhead costs," says Phil Diebel, vice president for finance and business affairs. "It has also discussed how the revenue from indirect costs should be treated within the model."

The committee still needs to create a process for creating subvention funds (money provided by the provost and/or president as base funding, in support of excellence, and for new initiatives consistent with the academic plan), a process for managing university reserves, a phase-in plan, and a budget control structure.

"We are in the middle of deciding the processes for how the university budget would be developed under RCM," Diebel says. "The work the committee has done so far establishes the beginning framework for a UNT RCM model. However, the entire process is fluid. Once each section of the model has been created, we anticipate the need to refine some of our methods."

The committee aims to complete design of the model early in fall 2005. Once the model is designed, the budget office will produce reports to show the effect of RCM on the university's responsibility centers for the committee's review before it creates a final report. A decision about whether UNT will implement RCM could then be made, possibly in the spring of 2006.

BY KELLEY REESE kreese@unt.edu

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• Scholarship honors a friend's commitment to promoting diversity
• Parking permits for 2005-06 now for sale
• Work dress codes relax as summer temperatures go up
• Gift to help promote Czech music, culture
• Denton County Transportation Authority approves rail line favored by UNT
• Mean Green 2005 season ticket packages for sale
• Faculty Senate elects officers for 2005-06

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