Texas A&M University-San Antonio’s business affairs head said the budget deficit will not impact faculty professional development after it was announced in a November town hall the shortfall would impact funding for faculty training.
During the Nov. 22 town hall, former provost Mike O’Brien said the budget deficit probably wouldn’t affect professional development this academic year,
Kathy Funk-Baxter, vice president for business affairs, said there has been no impact to the professional development budget.
“We made the decision recently that all professional development for faculty that was committed would be honored and so we have delivered on that, and all the colleges have their professional development funds that they were expecting,” Funk-Baxter said on Feb. 4.
Funk-Baxter said she does not believe the shortfall will affect faculty professional development during the next school year either.
“What it would impact is potentially there’s a piece of the faculty development money that was going to colleges and to the departments, and that is probably going to be reduced somewhat,” Funk-Baxter said.
Funk-Baxter said each college has its own strategy for allocating these funds. She said $2,000 is funded for each faculty member, though some colleges may give faculty $1,300 and utilize what is left to award faculty members within that department.
Funk-Baxter said nothing yet has been finalized, the university is still working on the budget for the next fiscal year.
The faculty professional development budget is approximately over $300,000, Funk-Baxter said.
Funk-Baxter said the deficit mainly affected the university’s reserve. Over $4 million was used in reserve spending, which was part of the budget plan for the fiscal year. She said according to the system thresholds, there are still sufficient reserves.
A&M-San Antonio is expected to have three months of operating reserves, but the university has more than that, Funk-Baxter said. She said the university has been able to put money back into the reserves.
“We are able to show a trend line that every year for the last several years we actually budget a certain amount of expenditures and then we are able to put money back into our reserves every single year,” Funk-Baxter said.
Funk-Baxter said the university’s budget for the fiscal year and use of reserves was fully explained to the A&M System and board of regents on Aug. 24 and 25.
