The $265,755,727 budget reflects an increase of $19 million over 1994-95, a growth of 7.82 percent. However, according to Executive Vice President John Temple, even that $19 million is slightly overstating the case. Temple pointed out that approximately $2 million of that figure is a temporary increase due to larger-than-projected classes in Emory College and the Law School. "More realistically," said Temple, "there is more like $17 million of real growth to support ongoing programs."
This moderate growth is the result of a leveling off of the return from the endowment, a lower level of growth in tuition increases, a lower growth in indirect cost recovery from research contracts and grants, and lower growth in payments from The Emory Clinic to the medical school.
Tuition increases will range from around 4 percent for first-year medical students and several allied health programs to 9.8 percent for first-year law students. Despite this year's increases, Emory's tuition rates continue to be less than those at competitor universities such as Washington University, Tulane, Duke, Vanderbilt and Rochester.
Sponsored research, an area that has shown incredible growth the last several years and that contributes to the budget through indirect cost recovery, is budgeted to grow at a slower pace, partly due to the expectation that there will be less federal funding available and concern about the effect of new federal regulations on payments for research support costs.
Provost Billy Frye, whose document "Choices and Responsibility" outlined the challenges facing the University in the next decade, said, "While the slowdown that we've been predicting and experiencing for the last few years is very evident in this budget, it is still a good, strong budget relative to the general picture in higher education. But if I were to emphasize one feature of our current budgetary picture, it would be the lack of a significant margin of discretionary resources for dealing with emergent high priority needs, such as those outlined in `Choices and Responsibility.' We are at the point where we shall have to modify our traditionally incremental approach to the budget to allow for the reevaluation of some of our current commitments if we are to regain the modest level of discretion that is necessary to wisely manage and form a developing institution like Emory."
Of the $19 million budget increase, approximately $3 million is being used to fund scholarships and stipends. That increase, said Temple, continues the practice the University has had in place for a number of years of increasing financial aid in proportion to the growth in tuition revenue.
Approximately $5.6 million will fund salary increases for faculty and staff, with the pool available once again being 3.75 percent. Enhancements to academic programs run slightly less than $6 million. Enhancements to support units total approximately $3 million, which includes almost $1 million to support new academic and service facilities. Units receiving enhancements include campus life, financial aid, admissions, the libraries, the patent office and the University Senate, as well as the night shuttle requested by the Student Government Association. Some additional funding will go to areas that have been stretched by increases in volume during the last several years, such as the Finance Division, Human Resources and mail service. Slightly less than $1 million is budgeted for new technology, systems and support, which includes the Purchasing Department's move toward a paperless environment, improved systems in financial aid, the Information Technology Division and the growing technology in the library environment.
Although budgetary growth has slowed, administrators commended departments across the University for investing in systems that result in increased service without increased long-term costs. "Departments have worked extremely hard to eliminate duplication and to work more efficiently," said Mel Lockhart, vice provost for academic and enrollment planning. "This type of effective management at Emory will enable us to provide quality service in spite of budgetary constraints."
President Bill Chace had a unique perspective in his first year of involvement in crafting Emory's budget. "My engagement with the budgetary process this year has afforded me a good position to witness both Emory's extraordinary advantages and the constraints it now faces," he said. "In comparison to other very strong institutions, Emory retains wholly enviable assets in the strength of its faculty and students, its buildings and land, its libraries and computing facilities, its low inventory of deferred maintenance and its location. It can well afford to be confident about the future; other institutions face that future with anxiety. But we now know that our rate of development must be tempered. Even within these limits, however, we can still afford to invest in those programs and those individuals who can make the most efficient use of interdisciplinary prospects, who can improve on good teaching to make it fine teaching, and who can discover the ways to make Emory more intellectually challenging and socially more responsible."
-- Nancy M. Spitler