Planning in a No-Growth Era
Our current rate of enrollment growth will bring us to the limit of physical capacity within two years. Once we are filled to capacity, all of our existing resources will be required to deal with the large but stable enrollment. At the same time, stable enrollment implies no additional funds for the University based upon enrollment growth, traditionally our most important source of new support.

After we reach enrollment capacity, there will still be new ongoing cost items that are unavoidable and require funding. Another issue is the absence of any inflationary funds for general operating expenses and equipment or unfunded mandates from the state or system. It is also likely that there will be new campus initiatives that we may wish to undertake without a corresponding revenue source with which to fund them.

We are going to be in this "no growth era" in two years, and it is imperative that we develop a comprehensive budget strategy to deal with these new conditions. One early and important step was the decision of the campus to decentralize responsibility for salary annualization, effective July 1, 2001.

The RPP Task Force will convene in the Fall to further discuss these issues and begin planning for future budget cycles.

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