Budget Forecasting for FY13 and FY14
August 9, 2012
To the Georgia Tech community:
In an effort to keep you informed of the latest developments regarding Georgia Tech’s financial outlook, I wanted to brief the campus community on the latest communication we’ve received from the Office of Planning and Budget (OPB) in the Governor’s office.
We recently received an update from OPB concerning the Amended Fiscal Year 2013 and Fiscal Year 2014 budgets. The instructions require that the University System of Georgia, as well as most other state agencies, submit a 3 percent reduction plan for FY13 and FY14.
For Georgia Tech, this amounts to a reduction of just under $6 million for each of the two years. The good news is that, due to careful planning, we are hopeful that we can handle these reductions centrally for FY13, sparing individual units another cut in the current fiscal year. This will, however, significantly limit our ability to undertake new initiatives, as well as force us to curtail some of the new initiatives/projects we had hoped to advance in the near term.
As requested, we prepared and submitted reduction plans for both fiscal years. A few noteworthy points:
- This is a single 3 percent reduction over the two-year period, not consecutive 3 percent reductions.
- Our instructions were that plans should assume that the reductions will be implemented, and will be permanent, meaning we cannot use furloughs or one-time items in our budget reduction strategy.
- The request requires that we submit plans that outline how we would manage such a reduction, but we have not yet been asked to actually return funds to the state.
As a side note, some of you may have seen news reports that schools within the University System are experiencing a decline in enrollment. That is not the case at Georgia Tech, where the demand for our degrees and programs is at an all-time high. In fact, the number of freshmen who have accepted admission to Tech this fall have far exceeded our own projections. We believe that this is the result of your continued efforts and our increasingly strong reputation for academic and research excellence.
We will continue to share information with the campus community as it becomes available, and I want to extend my thanks to each of you for your continued efforts and the many personal sacrifices you have made on behalf of Georgia Tech. I am truly privileged to represent you and this great institution.
