Brandon University faces $3-M deficit

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This article was published 25/09/2023 (713 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

BRANDON — With rising expenses and no expectation of equitable provincial funding, Brandon University’s administration is contending with a $3 million deficit heading into budget season.

Scott Lamont, BU’s vice-president of administration and finance, delivered this report during a Saturday morning Board of Governors meeting, where he revealed that the estimated increase in expenses for the 2024-25 academic year will be $4.5 million while the expected jump in revenue is only $1.5 million.

Even though there are several factors that explain this projected $3 million deficit, Lamont said the biggest variable at play is BU’s stagnant provincial operating grant, which is their largest source of revenue.

“Our operating grants decreased over the last four, five years by 2.5 per cent while inflation went up 8.5 per cent,” he told the board over the weekend.

“At a certain point, you run out of options to find the ways to balance the budget … while you’re trying to offer additional services.”

Government funding was a major sticking point during BU’s 2023-24 budgeting process, with the province’s $42 million operating grant representing a 3.9 per cent increase from the previous year.

However, post-secondary schools like the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba received a 20.2 per cent and 10.8 per cent boost, respectively, that same year, despite smaller schools like BU also suffering from rising inflation and declining enrolment brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since BU officials haven’t heard any word to the contrary since last March, they are heading into the 2024-25 budget season with the expectation that their provincial grant will remain at or around 2023-24 levels.

BU president David Docherty expressed frustration with the province’s current approach to post-secondary funding on Saturday, stating that government officials haven’t offered a clear explanation for this uneven distribution of grants.

“If we had a funding formula that was transparent and we knew it, then we could say, ‘Okay, this is why we got three points. This is why you in Winnipeg got 20 per cent.’ But there was never any discussion of that,” Docherty said. “To this day, we’ve been told different things by different people, none of which make any sense.”

This process is further complicated by the fact that Manitoba is currently embroiled in a provincial election, which will result in a prolonged period of government reorganization no matter which party wins on Oct. 3.

Lamont also mentioned that BU’s salaries and benefits — which account for roughly 75 per cent of its expenses — could also fluctuate based on the ongoing contract negotiations with the Brandon University Faculty Association and other support staff unions.

“So this coming year … is the first year, or one of the few years, when we won’t know the salaries of any of our employees. Not one of them,” Lamont said. “So that’s what we have to figure out now.”

However, Lamont revealed that there are some bright spots in BU’s economic forecast, particularly when it comes to tuition fees (its second highest source of revenue).

While the university endured a steady decline in student enrolment due to COVID restrictions — culminating with a nine per cent drop in domestic, non-Indigenous pupils for 2022-23 — that figure has started to trend upwards.

For this fall semester, Lamont said that credit hours for first-year students are up by 15.9 per cent, which is a tell-tale sign that campus life is returning to normal after several disruptive years of remote learning and social distancing.

“We had a discussion with a faculty member yesterday who was just saying how different it feels in class this September compared to a year ago, how much more engaged students are and how much more comfortable they are now being in a more social setting again,” Lamont said.

“And so I think that’s reflective of them also taking more courses, more students being willing to come back.”

Lamont ended his presentation by admitting that a lot of the figures included in his report will change in the coming months, especially since staffing plans and workload requirements won’t be finalized until later this year.

And while the BU administration is investigating alternate ways of closing the gap on this $3 million shortfall, Lamont believes that the most effective way to generate a balanced budget in March is through provincial funding that compares equitably with larger Winnipeg-based universities.

“If conditions don’t change, or we don’t get a sufficient response to the issues that we’ve raised, then we will have to go to what I’m going to call a ‘Plan B,’ which is trying to find whatever we need to do in order to get to a balanced position,” he said.

— Brandon Sun