Although Ohio University’s budget of $644.9 million can seem astronomical to a college student, that dollar amount does not even cover all of OU’s entities.
Several OU colleges and auxiliaries — including all regional campuses, the Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine, Residential Housing and Culinary Services — operate independently of the primary OU budget.
Similar to the Athens campus’ general budget, the regional campus budgets rely on tuition and State Share of Instruction as main sources of income, said John Day, associate provost for Academic Budget and Planning.
“Those three areas are supposed to operate on the money (they) get in,” Day said. “They pay back into the Athens budget to the costs they incur.”
Although their revenue streams are the same, the regional campuses operate apart from the general budget because they tend to offer primarily associate degrees, so tuition costs are lower, Day said.
The total regional campus budget for fiscal year 2014 is $62.7 million, 93 percent of which is composed of tuition revenue and SSI, said Rosanna Howard, regional campus director of operations and budget.
Regional campus budgets work as a system, said Chad Mitchell, OU’s budget director.
Each regional campus operates a budget for its specific needs and reports them to Howard, Mitchell said.
“They need to balance all of their revenues across the whole system,” Mitchell said.
Each individual campus uses what it receives from the entire regional budget for direct expenditures and general operating budget fees, such as supplies, maintenance and repairs, Howard said.
The regional campus budget setup is similar to the Responsibility Centered Management budget model, making the RCM transition fluid and understandable for the regional campuses, Howard said.
The regional campuses were still affected by the transition, however. Because of the switch to the RCM budget model across all OU factions, regional campuses pay a total of $12.6 million for a direct overhead to the Athens campus budget, an increase from the previous year’s direct overhead of $5.8 million, Howard said.
Most budgets external to the OU main budget saw an increase in their direct overhead payments to the university budget because of the recent RCM transition.
The increase was not significant to the Culinary Services budget, said Gwyn Scott, associate vice president for Auxiliaries.
“There was not a significant amount of difference between what we were paying before and what we will pay,” Scott said.
One of the exceptions to the increase was Residential Housing, which saw its overhead decrease, said Peter Trentacoste, director of residential housing.
A vast majority of Residential Housing’s income is derived from dorm-rental fees.
That income is then divided among routine maintenance, employee compensation and investment into capital improvement projects, from fresh paint in some halls to the Housing Development Plan, Trentacoste said.
The breakdown of Residential Housing’s budget has not varied greatly with the Housing Development Plan because of the low rate OU can currently service debt, Trentacoste said.
“The department has the capacity to pay for that debt in the long run,” Trentacoste said. “If we’re looking at issuing debt for the long term, it’s appropriate for our budget at this time.”
The Culinary Services budget also operates independently of student tuition, gaining revenue from student board plans and retail operations, which it uses to pay for the cost of goods, employee salaries and benefits and capital investment, which includes maintenance and rental of certain facilities such as Baker University Center, Scott said.
“(We) have to have an idea as to what the markets are going to do, and it’s an opportunity for us to be responsive with the culinary program,” Scott said.
If a market crash were to happen in the agricultural industry, causing Culinary Services’ expenditures to fall below its income, OU’s budget would support it, Scott said.
“I hope that never happens,” Scott said. “We plan for that to never happen and we forecast accordingly.”
Budget Breakdown
Several departments on campus handle their own budgets based on the needs of their markets and employees.
Athens campus operating budget for FY14:
$644.9 million
OU’s total operating revenue budget for FY13:
$707.6 million
OU’s total operating expenditures for FY13:
$684.5 million
(budget book)
Regional Campuses Total Operating Budget for FY14:
$62.7 million
Culinary Services Total Budget FY14:
$41 million
Residential Housing total operating budget FY14:
$44,952,735
Overheads
(money paid into OU's total budget from external budgets)
Regional Campuses FY13: $5.8 million
Regional Campuses FY14: $12.6 million
Culinary Services FY14: $3.1 million
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@DanielleRose84
