The Flat Hat: Reveley speaks to students at UC forum

The Flat Hat

The Student Newspaper of the College of William and Mary since 1911


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According to Reveley, who refers to himself as “Ip” (for interim president), the past three weeks have gone better than expected. “There is really a need for healing, really a need for continuity, and really a need for making some progress again,” he said “We’ve been in crisis management mode for the past couple weeks.” At the top of his priorities is finding the College funding for the College’s Gateway Program —which offers financial aid to low-income Virginia residents — and try to keep the Virginia General Assembly from cutting more the College’s budget. According to Reveley, his efforts to expand the College’s coffers have only been met with “soothing words” from the General Assembly, who cut funding to the College by 6.25 percent last year. Approximately 16.5 percent of the College’s budget comes from the commonwealth, and there is potential for further cutbacks as Virginia tries to relieve its debt, which exceeds $200 million. Reveley said that he has received no financial pressure from the GA to direct the College in any particular direction over the next year, and that — although the budget may be tight — funding will go forward for the new School of Education building. One student expressed her concern that Reveley he may be focusing too heavily on fundraising. “No president worth his spit is just a fundraiser,” Reveley said, “Funds are really important… but I think an effective president in addition to … raising money … must be interested in every other aspect of the College.” Reveley also said that universities with effective fundraising strategies do not adhere to a corporate model, as some on campus have feared. At the beginning of the meeting, Reveley said the BOV’s visit to campus last week provided an important step in the healing of ties between the campus community and the board. He added that having a voting student, staff or faculty member on the BOV would be highly unlikely. Throughout the meeting, Reveley consistently returned to the theme of rebuilding and re-unifying the campus. “We’ve been caught up in [the media and] the national culture wars for 18 months,” he said, “It’ll happen, it’s just going to take awhile.” Can someone please help me understand where The Flat Hat gets their numbers? The article claims that the Commonwealth cut funding to the College by 6.25% last year. That did not sound accurate, so I looked up Virginia’s education budget. According to the Commonwealth’s site (http://www.dpb.state.va.us/Budget/vabud/vabud.cfm?vTable=O&vBiennium=2006-2008&vSecretary=Educa&vSort=N) the College received $206.3M last year, and will receive $212.6M in 2008. Better still, W&M received $183.0M in 2005 and $188.8M for 2006. My concentration was in History, but my well-rounded, liberal arts education tells me that the College received increased funding this year. In fact, this represents a 16% increase since 2005, and a 3.1% increase since last year. Does The Flat Hat have different numbers? — Mike '92 Feb 28, 09:16 AM # Mike, Could it be that the funding listed on the VA Budget site includes tuition dollars? I seem to recall that all tuition dollars are delivered to the Commonwealth and then re-directed to the College. That process may have changed under the “charter university” concept adopted a few years back, but I don’t know. If indeed those tuition dollars are included in the line items you reference, then we may not be able to really discern what the General Fund contribution is and if it has declined or increased. — Jack Russell '72, '77 Feb 28, 10:08 AM # Jack, That is an excellent question, and I am not sure if tuition dollars are included in the non general-fun column. It does not seem likely, given the other items that would be way out of proportion if that were true. Even if we assume for the sake of discussion that that is the case, general fund dollars (which could not include tuition) still rose from $41.9M in ’05 to $44.2M in ’06 to $49.8M last year to $52.2M this year. Again, that is the worst case scenario for the College, and an unlikely one at that. Does anyone have a link to the numbers used by The FH? — Mike '92 Feb 28, 10:43 AM # Dear Mike’92: see: http://www.wm.edu/news/?id=8284 and http://www.wm.edu/president/Jones-Budget-Memo-021808.pdf. The Flat Hat appears to have the numbers correct. — faculty member Feb 28, 12:03 PM # Thank you Faculty Member. The second link did not work, but I read through the first. As much as I appreciate the College’s press release, it only seemed to be a report on Pres. Nichol saying that the budget was cut. I do not think he was being dishonest, but I have been away from school for long enough to learn that ‘cut’ does not necessarily mean a lesser amount when one discusses budgetary matters, particularly those of government. One lesson I learned the hard way at the College (there were many, unfortunately) was that primary sources, if available, must be used to reach a conclusion. One early history professor (rightly) read me the riot act for including an encyclopedia entry in my bibliography. I took a serious hit on my grade, but learned an important lesson. If you are her, by the way, I thank you! In this case, the only primary source I have, the Commonwealth’s budget, indicates that real dollars from VA to the College have increased significantly. It sounds as though the FH and Pres. Nichol got their numbers from the same place, and I would like to see that source before reaching a conclusion. Might you know where those numbers are published? — Mike '92 Feb 28, 01:51 PM # Dear Mike’92: Apologies for the second link; you need to remove the trailing period, i.e. http://www.wm.edu/president/Jones-Budget-Memo-021808.pdf (unless it is blocked to off-campus computers?) . This is a memo from VP Sam Jones to Interim President Reveley on the latest on the State budget. I don’t have access to the primary sources. Indeed, Jack Russell ’72,‘77 has it correct: the State includes tuition $ when it reports “Non General Fund” numbers. Another point: the cuts refer to not the present FY, but to the first year of the upcoming biennium. — faculty member Feb 28, 03:06 PM # Thanks, Faculty. In the state’s budget, though, General Fund dollars go up each year. Even if non General Fund dollars are excluded (Has tuition skyrocketed the last four years, or do we have a larger percentage of out of state students?), the College has still seen a $10.1M increase over the last four years. There is no budget for 2009 yet, and since TFH and Pre. Nichol’s numbers seem to reference 2007 I think 2005-2008 would include the period in question. Every way I slice it, I cannot come up with an answer to how this is a decrease in state funding. — Mike '92 Feb 28, 03:25 PM # Mike — The General Assembly appropriates from two big pots: the General Fund and the Non-General Fund. GF dollars are tax funds sent, in this case, to the College. The Non-General Fund is made up of tuition – which is considered state money regardless. The GA appropriates Non-General Funds, though it doesn’t provide the funding. A NGF appropriation is basically permission to raise that much through tuition/fees. When they say they’re cutting higher education budgets, it means they are cutting the GENERAL FUND side of the pie. So if you lose 10% of your money coming from the state, it has to be made up by the school — either by cutting that amount or by raising tuition to compensate. You have additional difficulties there as well — because when you raise tuition you also have to find more money for financial aid for the students who can’t pay the unexpected increase… a bad cycle. To get to the point people are asking, specifically: Funding the past few years, in real dollars, has increased. No one disputes that — the Genreal Assembly has learned that higher education is good for the economy. The original request from the Governor to cut 7 or similar percent was for the current fiscal year – FY08. In other words, the state wasn’t getting as much money as it expected and wouldn’t be able to pay its current bills unless they cut spending in this year. In addition to that, the state expects that it will be short more than a billion for the next budget cycle. VA budgets on a two year cycle, so thats FY09-FY2010. That biennial budget remains under debate in the General Assembly, which is set to adjourn on March 8. Generally, though, just an increase in real dollars isn’t enough. Colleges in VA are funded through something called the Base Adequacy Formula. the BAF is calculated to ensure that VA colleges receive funding to the median of their peer institutions. The amount of money that requires increases every year, and it increases faster than inflation. — Dave Solimini Feb 28, 03:28 PM # Dave, I understand what you mean, but the numbers still do not support the claim that the College lost revenue provided by the state. General Fund dollars to W&M were $41.9M, $44.2M, $49.8M, and $52.2M for 2005-2008 respectively. The numbers provided seem to be from a letter written by Pres Nichol in 2007, and they refer to the budget cut in the past tense. TFH and Pres. Nichol said that state funding has been cut, not that it will be cut. I don’t think they were talking about prospective cuts in’09-‘10. If they were, I am not sure why they would speak of it with such certitude (especially since the newly elected Democratic State Senat had not even been sworn in!). The only explanation that might hold water is the BAF definition you provided (and thank you for doing so). Even with only General Fund dollars, the BAF would have to increas at a rate of nearly 25% over the last four years to make that a cut. It seems clear that there has not yet been a cut in funding, and the cut we are worried about is not in real dollars, but is baselined on the BAF index. While I think I understand the premise, I would still love to see the source information that allowed the College to precicely calculate a cut by a legislature that had not even elected (the article FM linked is from 10/7/07). Dave and Faculty Member, thank you for helping me understand this better. If either of you finds the numbers on which the claim is based, I would appreciate it if you could post a link. Now I know why I went with history instead of math :) — Mike '92 Feb 28, 04:33 PM #