It will also help to ensure that academic priorities are driving financial decisions. Under the new plan, the Administrative Council will continue to maintain a leadership role by defining strategic goals to ensure the continued success of the University. The Institutional Planning Committee, recently approved by the Administrative Council, will replace both the Institutional Analysis Committee and the Financial Planning Task Force. It will function as a working committee, responsible for the integration of responsibility and support center planning into a single, cohesive, institutional plan. The Director of Resource Planning and Budget, a new position in the Office of Finance and Administration, will maintain responsibility for the coordination, verification and assessment of requested resource needs within the responsibility center plans and will support the Institutional Planning Committee in the interpretation of resource needs within the long-term financial plan of the University.
Good planning guides the budget, and planning is the heart of responsibility center management.
Budgets should not be based on today's short-term needs. One of the end results of implementing this resource planning model is to better direct our resources in achieving our mission, vision and the shared values articulated in the strategic plan. It provides more accurate and timely reporting of financial performance and allows departments to receive a clearer view of how they are managing themselves, based on the resources that are available and those that are being used. This authority, David says, will enable responsibility centers to become more aware of their indirect costs. Currently University departments lose money to a central fund if it is not spent by year's end.