Welcome

Thank you for your interest in UCF’s Budget Model Redesign Initiative. This is a unique time in our country’s history, and our institution must continue to evolve to respond to the significant changes in the higher education landscape and meet the growing needs of our community.

What are some of these changes and how can a new approach to budgeting help? Shifting student demographics and completion rates, growing concern over college affordability and student debt, diminishing state funding, and higher operating costs are just some of the challenges that are driving higher education policy and innovation in recent years. The need to employ new learning technologies, fully integrate data analytics to modernize and manage programs, and make other transformative improvements to respond to these challenges and show returns on student and state investments in face of shrinking budgets are propelling institutions to look for new revenue streams beyond tuition.

Furthermore, forward-thinking institutions are adopting new solutions to decrease the cost of education, enhance the brand experience, and improve student outcomes. Transitioning to a more strategic, data-informed model can significantly improve fiscal stewardship, empower colleges and schools to grow program revenues, and encourage administration to operate more efficiently while providing improved services.

For these reasons, it is more important than ever that we collaboratively redesign and implement a transparent and innovative budget allocation model and business processes that are simple to understand, help us plan for the future and invest in our strategic priorities, and reflect UCF’s core values, principles and goals.

This is a major undertaking, and we need the collective experience and support of our entire campus community to implement the model successfully. Please stay tuned to this website and campus communications for more information about the projected timeline, opportunities to participate, and other important logistics.

Project Leadership

Executive Sponsors

Appointed by the President, Interim Provost Michael Johnson and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Gerald Hector are serving as the project’s executive sponsors. In addition to providing strategic direction and leadership for the project, they are forming the structure of committees and taskforces/workgroups that will implement the model, create a system of ongoing checks and balances with regards to model goals, and ensure transparency of all relevant budget decisions, policies and processes throughout each budget cycle.

Establishing a collaborative and transparent governance structure with active representation from both academic and administrative stakeholders is necessary to effectively implement a new budget model and maintain a university wide perspective that will ensure continuity and long-term success.

Steering Committee

Appointed by the President and Executive Sponsors, the charge of the Steering Committee members was to engage stakeholders across the university to assess the current state of budgeting and make a budget model recommendation to the President and Executive Sponsors. The Steering Committee met regularly from October 2019 to March 2020, and completed its charge with a recommendation to develop and implement an incentive-based budget model following a phased, multi-year approach. The budget model was approved  unanimously by the academic Deans and, the President, and shared with the Board of Trustees in May 2020.

* UCF resignations or retirees.

Steering Committee Support Staff (Non-voting members)

Donna DuBuc
Budget Director
Division of Administration and Finance

Lynn Gonzalez
Chief of Operations and Strategic Initiatives
Division of Administration and Finance

Elizabeth Hamilton
Assistant Vice President, Strategic Planning
Division of Administration and Finance

Budget Advisory Group

Now in the parallel year of implementation, a small budget advisory group is actively working to ensure the project remains on course and that our community has adequate opportunities for engagement, feedback, and training. Led by the  Steering Committee co-chairs, former Associate Vice President of Financial Affairs Kristie Harris and College of Business Dean Paul Jarley, this group is providing expertise, support and recommendations to the Executive Sponsors, President, BOT, and others as needed. Additionally, they provide strategic direction and policy guidance to Academic Affairs, Financial Affairs and other UCF project staff, as well as to the taskforces/workgroups forming to build and support the general model infrastructure and new business processes during the parallel year and beyond.

Project Governance

University Budget Committee (UBC)

Effective budgeting translates strategic goals into operating plans.  Appointed by and serving at the discretion of the President, the University Budget Committee (UBC) is an advisory group responsible for making recommendations for stewarding, optimizing, and investing the university’s financial resources in ways that strategically advance the goals and mission of the university.

Chaired by Interim Provost Michael Johnson and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Gerald Hector, the committee includes members from across the university (faculty, staff and students) and is charged with making recommendations to the President regarding budget model allocations and strategic investments based on available resources. Through the committee’s collective leadership, they will influence the future excellence, productivity, and impact of UCF through the optimal use of limited resources.

Information regarding UCF’s budget philosophy and UBC meeting minutes may be found here

Central Support Unit Allocation Committee (CSUAC)

Appointed by and serving at the discretion of the President, the Central Support Unit Allocation Committee (CSUAC) was formed in November 2020 as a companion group to the UBC to support the implementation and ongoing success of UCF’s incentive-based budget model.  Chaired by Interim Provost Michael Johnson and Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Gerald Hector, it is an advisory committee that makes recommendations to the UBC regarding central support unit (CSU) budget and cost allocations. A complete list of CSUs may be found here (see “How are units classified?).

Essential duties of this committee include:

• working with CSUs to develop and implement appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure performance;
• facilitating the development of service level agreements (SLAs) between primary units and select CSUs, and making suggestions for performance improvement;
• reviewing CSU budget proposals, including strategic objectives, service level demands, and workforce plans; and
• submitting unified CSU budget and cost allocation recommendations and elevating any unresolved issues to the UBC.

All CSUAC recommendations will be thoroughly vetted by the UBC for recommendation to the President. This allows for transparency, accountability, and data-informed decision making.

CSUAC meeting minutes may be found here.