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Originally posted by: info
"Under Lassen’s proposed plan, the money would leave control of the departments and be consolidated in a central fund under his control and be used to purchase things for the university as a whole rather than for individual departments."

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The moral of this story: spend early and spend often lest the administration take it back.

Administrative practices like this is the reason that I once advised faculty members to put more money into equipment rather than into salaries when they wrote their grants. After all, back then we only got somewhere from $1200 to $1500 for a part-time replacement. If the grant writer asked the funding agency for $3,000 to $4,000 for 1/4 time for one course, only a fraction of that would be make available to the department to hire that replacement. The researcher would get more bang for his/her buck if money went into equipment rather than into salary.

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i find it very difficult to believe that there is ~ 4 million in carryover from the departmental operating budgets when salaries are excluded from the equation. The only departments I know of that do not spend their accounts down are the ones that are saving up for a piece of equipment and even those accounts are relatively small. I wish someone in the know would clarify what 4 million we are talking about. if it is the departmental development accounts, that is a mix of past carryover and past/current grant overhead money. it would be disasterous for Lassen to touch those accounts.

the academic year started july 1 and ends june 31, 05, yes?

Some comments on the article overall.

"...Lassen faced critics who feared that these funds would be 'swept' away."  The money that was "swept" away (as I understand it) was last year's rollover money - money that has, in the past, been returned to the departments.  The $3.3 million (if that is the right number) was not "swept" away but was not allowed to grow by the amount of last year's rollover because, without notice of a change in policy, it was not returned to the departments to be added to the accumulated amounts.

Lassen is quoted as saying: "If a process changes, it will be going forward, not retroactive and it's still an 'if'." Does that constitute a publicly stated commitment that he will not touch the $3.3 million?

" 'Today, where we are as an organization is an extremely decentralized place where each one of these professors thinks of themselves as an individual business unit,' Lassen said."  Hmmm, the most obvious example of an individuals operating as "business units" would be in which out of control department(s)? 

USM Development Funds inset chart and Records Request inset shaded box may not appear in the on-line copy - worth reading in hard copy.

"But the way I look at this university is we're all on the same team," Lassen said. "So I just refuse to accept that we have sides. What I was trying to do there was communicate what is currently going on but some of the changes I would like in the future to contemplate.

Pah-leeze

When I was Director of the School of FCS a few years ago, the School (equivalent to a large department in other colleges) had two development accounts. One was the account into which indirect funds from grants and faculty salary recovery monies were deposited. When departments and schools were first allowed to roll over end of the year money, we had to create new accounts to hold it, and these were also usually referred to as development accounts. I believe payments for any activity through Continuing Education went into the latter accounts, as did reimbursements for faculty teaching on the Coast. Finally, departments or schools or even entities such as the Center for Child Development also had accounts in the Foundation, and many people also called these development accounts. Without clarification of which accounts are being reported, it is impossible to know what the figures given in the newspaper article represent.