Task Force Report

Overview

The Strategic Planning Task Force on Budget Model, chaired by Christine Jackson, former Vice Chancellor for Business & Finance and Donde Plowman, former Executive Vice Chancellor, was instructed to conduct a full review of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s existing budget system, document general processes for resource allocations, investigate best practices in higher education budgeting nationally and draft a series of recommendations of the Chancellor for recalibration of the budgeting model moving forward.

According to the task force, there is a need for improvement in UNL’s current budgeting processes and a desire to change the budget model currently used.

The lack of transparency in the current budgeting process and the lack of shared financial information makes it difficult for many decision makers, particularly in the academic units, to encourage efficiency and hold programs accountable. The lack of incentives for revenue sharing makes the university’s goals of increased enrollments difficult for academic units to embrace. Thus, we recommend moving away from the CAM (Central-Administration Management) model currently used to a modified-RCM model that adheres to the principles outlined in this report. The selection of metrics used in the model will be critical to its success. Having the right metrics while also keeping the model simple will be important.