UW Trustees embark on annual budgeting process

Proposed budgets for each university division show large revenue gains from state appropriations, modest gains from tuition and investments, and greater expenses in the form of debt payments.

As the current fiscal year comes to a close, large government entities such as the University of Wyoming are starting to consider how they’ll raise and spend money in the upcoming fiscal year, FY2024.

UW kicked off its annual budgeting process today. Trustees are in Laramie this week to attend graduation ceremonies this weekend. Between now and then, however, they’re scheduled to look at a number of issues facing the university — from hearing updates on UW initiatives to receiving preliminary findings from UW’s campus-wide sexual misconduct survey.

But the week begins with the budget.

Specifically, the week begins with two full days of budget hearings, during which every major university unit or division comes before the board, explaining where it gets its funding, discussing how it will spend those funds, and justifying any proposed changes from the budget that unit was allocated last year.

“This process really is about finding out what the needs are for those units, and what kind of plans they have for the future, and what they’re doing currently,” UW Board of Trustees Secretary Laura Schmid-Pizzato said. “We are trying to get to what is needed and what we should be funding and where our limited resources should be going.”

Deputy Vice President for Budget and Finance Alex Kean addressed the board first, providing a high elevation overview of the proposed budget for next year.

“The FY2024 budget as presented today fully allocates all the forecasted revenue,” Kean said. “Embedded in this budget is a continued significant investment in salary, wages and benefits — largely driven by the second consecutive institution-wide salary raise plan funded through the (Wyoming) Legislature. That adds a little over $12 million, on top of the $8 million last year.”

In addition to salary increase funding, UW also scored an additional $3.6 million for the Science Initiative and an additional $5.5 million for the Tier 1 Engineering Initiative in the state’s supplemental budget bill passed earlier this year.

It’s not all new revenues, however, Kean said. There are also new expenses. For example, UW is paying down the ongoing project to revamp the university dorms.

“A large increase in expense embedded in this is the continued extension of our debt service payments for the housing taskforce project,” Kean said. “This debt service is spread out really between three units in our budget — dining, housing and parking and transit. In total, that adds about $4 million of debt service to the university’s budget.”

But a boost in state appropriations, a modest increase in tuition revenue, and strong investment returns lead to an overall larger budget, Kean said.

“When we look at the overall projected university unrestricted operating budget, there’s an additional $34 million compared to FY23 — again, largely driven by state appropriations,” he said. “However, there is some increase from net tuition and educational fee revenue. That net revenue that’s loaded in the budget as of today is about $2.2 million … On a positive note, investment income has been very strong over the past three quarters and we anticipate similar returns moving forward, largely because we’re invested in fixed income and short term duration investments.”

Of course, it’s impossible to plan perfectly for the upcoming year. UW will also have to decide what it will request from the State Legislature next winter, when lawmakers meet to determine the state’s budget for fiscal years 2025-2026.

UW President Ed Seidel told the board those requests were still being hammered out.

“Throughout all of these (division) budget requests, you’ll see discussion around legislative requests,” he said. “Those have been discussed but not yet approved. We’re going to go through a prioritization process and we’re going to bring them back to you at the June meeting.”

At that June meeting, the board will likely approve the proposed budget — as presented by university divisions, or tweaked to satisfy the trustees’ goals. Fiscal year 2024 begins in July.