The faculty budgets for 2004, which serve as a basis for the autumn consultations with the executive board, all show a deficit. These vary from six-hundred thousand to three million euro, and have both structural and incidental causes.
The budget of the faculty EEMCS shows a hole of two million euro, dean Henk Zijm announces. 'And I do not see how I could close this hole. That would require drastic measures, but I have no idea which I should take. Our main costs are personnel and infrastructure, and I can hardly fire 40 people. That is formally impossible, it is not decent, and in the short term hardly yields any funds.' The effect of the low student inflow of a few years back, which now yields less graduations and thus less money, is only one (incidental) cause of the millions deficit, according to Zijm.
A structural problem is the financial distribution model. The bonuses supplied by the executive board (CvB) for high performance in obtaining indirect government funding and commercial funding should be lucrative to EEMCS. But because of the limited amount of funds available, better performances do not automatically lead to more money, but to stagnation or even decrease in bonuses. 'I fully support the principle of higher performance, more money; the CvB and I agree on this totally. But the way it works now is not motivating my staff to bring in more projects', according to Zijm.
The faculty Science and Technology (S&T) is three million euro short. At least. They are assuming that 1.3 million will come in via the UT-research institutes, but that is by no means certain. Andries Groening, financial man of the faculty, is 'concerned' about the situation. But S&T dean Bliek does not foresee 'dramatic measures' to keep his faculty alive.
Bliek does feel that it is necessary to overhaul the bonus system, as 'it cannot be sold'.
Dean of Engineering Technology Henk Grootenboer submitted a budget with a deficit of seven-hundred thousand. 'We are short, but it does not yet cause me sleepless nights,' according to the dean. 'We can meet some of it ourselves, as we will have left slightly more than budgeted for at the end of 2003. In addition, the prospects are good, with a number of educational programmes that are still growing, like industrial design, biomedical engineering, and clinical technology.' Grootenboer expects to survive the autumn meetings with the CvB.
The faculty Behavioural Sciences (GW) is almost six-hundred thousand short. Mainly as a consequence of extra incidental expenses in 2004, according to GW-controller Pieter Schaefer, among them the move and redecoration of the faculty in the former mathematics building.
Schaefer is not too worried about this single overrun, if this can be covered from the faculty reserves. 'But if we have to meet it by cutting back, we have a problem.' Structurally GW could break even, but to be able to invest in educational programmes with growth potential a number of reorganisational measures have to be taken, the effects of which will not become apparent after the end of 2004.
Business, Public Administration and Technology dean Wouter van Rossum foresees a budget deficit for 2004 of over seven-hundred thousand. 'And if you include the deficits of the institutes Cheps and CSTM it is 960,000 euro', according to Van Rossum. Being in the red is according to him nomore than a 'temporary dip'. 'We were already working on compensating for some deficits, among them because of overly high personnel costs at Public Administration and Public Policy.' A cold reorganisation is not necessary according to the dean. 'We will make do with not filling temporary contracts, and reallocating people. We are doing very well in our post-initial education. Looking at the longer term I do not see a structural problem.' But the budget deficit has to be turned around, the dean acknowledges, in a number of serious conversations with the board.
transl. Dineke van Aalst
