Toward Achieving Vision 2030

We are addressing the financial strain that is being experienced in the higher education industry head-on by engaging in a holistic, university-wide budget realignment and growth initiative that will enable us to shore up our short-term and long-term financial health while also delivering on our mission to our students. We began this work in November 2022, and it will continue for the next few years.

These efforts will enable us to shore up our short-term and long-term financial health so that we can serve our students even more effectively and make education work for all.

Higher education institutions, especially public universities, are facing significant internal and external pressures. CU Denver is not immune from these financial realities, which have created the need for near-term and longer-term budget reductions as well as a renewed focus on enrollment and revenue growth. Some of the factors impacting finances include:

• We have not met our enrollment targets in recent years even as we've worked hard to buck national and regional enrollment trends.
• We have kept tuition and fees affordable at CU in the interest of our students and families.
• State funding for research institutions has not kept up with inflation.
• We are committed to paying our employees competitively and equitably, including merit increases in January 2023 and beyond.
• Our costs for employee benefits and other campus costs keep increasing.
• On top of all this, reports of a potential national recession loom.

Generally, if the CU System receives favorable gains from investments in the markets, the System shares a portion of those gains with the campuses for local strategic investments. This past year, market losses experienced across the country and at CU mean that there are limited gains to share at this moment. For a full explanation of the situation, including the impacts to CU Denver, please see Chancellor Marks’ email update from February 7, 2023.

When we developed the percentages, we had to remove certain expenses (e.g., institutional financial aid and commitments and obligations such as debt service and transfers to AHEC or the System Office) from the calculation because we cannot reduce payments on our mandatory obligations. That means our total FY 2023 budget (without these mandatory obligations) is about $190 million. The estimated $12 million reduction, then amounts to about 6.3% of the $190 million. We asked for proposals that reduce expenditures a little more, to ensure we can ultimately get to the reductions necessary while realizing we will need to make strategic investments to grow. To do so we need to realign our resources toward the actions that support our strategic plan goals.

Additionally, because we want to preserve our academic enterprise as much as possible, we have asked administrative units to cut more deeply. At the same time, we recognize the important interaction between the administrative units that support the academic enterprise and student success. Therefore, we are asking all leaders to be mindful of the long-term impact on student learning and faculty, staff, and student success when making their strategic realignment proposals.

For the schools and colleges, 7% equals $9 million. On the administrative side, 8% equals $5.3 million. We asked for larger cut proposals to ensure we can ultimately accomplish a balanced budget. We acknowledge that not every unit will take the same percentage reduction and that some areas need investment. By asking for reductions that are slightly greater than what is immediately needed for a balanced budget we are giving ourselves the ability to make growth-minded, strategic decisions about the reductions and realignments needed to align our budget toward our Vision 2030.

To ensure we identify strategic ideas that most advance the commitments made in the university’s 2030 strategic plan, we developed principles that were validated by our community in February 2023. Those preliminary principles are below, and any updated principles will be shared at an upcoming information session.

• Prioritize student success and necessary supports
• Prioritize our people and their hard work
• Prioritize DEI and the continued equity-serving nature of our work
• Value systems thinking, nimbleness and an institutional mindset
• Remember our fiduciary responsibility as stewards of public funds and students’ tuition dollars

This process is holistic, integrated, and iterative and involves our whole campus community, with leadership from vice chancellors, deans, and shared governance leaders. Between November 2022 and March 2023, a support team composed of a representative from the CU Denver Budget Office, representatives from the Provost Office, and third-party advisers specializing in financial strategy and change management has worked with each dean and administrative unit leader, with input from shared governance leadership, to take a critical look at their operations and budgets to identify key reductions, innovative ideas, and redesigns that a.) enable us to balance our overall budget and b.) position their units—and the institution—for strategic growth down the line. That dean/unit leader also brought their own team to the table.

The groups reviewed a host of data and determine how to use different tools for decision making. These could include:

• Decision Support Toolkit
• Insight Guides
• Historical persistence, retention, graduation, and enrollment data by program 
• Enrollment targets in alignment with the strategic enrollment management plan
• Market intelligence
• University and unit-level budget information
• Human Resources information
• Departmental and unit DEI plans
• Case studies from other universities
• Assistance with organizational design

At the outset of this budget realignment initiative and in keeping with our strategic plan, we have set quality education (teaching, learning, and student support) as the most important priority for CU Denver. That is one reason that administration has been asked to make larger cuts compared to the academic side of the house and why we have not imposed across-the board cuts. Instead, we have asked for holistic, coordinated proposals from administrative units, and schools, and colleges, which will help us make the best decisions we can.

We have intentionally created guiding principles for the budget realignment initiative to prioritize teaching, learning, student support, and equity. In a budget-constrained environment, the greatest challenge is that we don’t have enough money to fund everything, but we have brought our community together for this process to help make the best recommendations and decisions as possible with our guiding principles to help us make those decisions.

No. In fact, our strategic planning work is the most important way to create a more sustainable, impactful, and financially healthy institution. If we are strategic about our work, we should be able to reasonably map out our strategic goals with an identified funding mechanism as we move forward. Still, some initiatives may take a little longer to achieve because we will need to pay for them with ongoing dollars. We cannot hope to pay for things with one-time funds that are not guaranteed beyond the first year. The teams who are working on the more than 50 strategic planning initiatives in fiscal year 2022-2023 are being asked to re-evaluate timelines, with clear direction to keep projects moving and moving at a slower pace as needed.

Yes, we all need to contribute to budget reductions, but we have intentionally designed this process to be strategic and incremental. In the past, some CU Denver budget realignment efforts may have taken an across-the-board approach to reductions. Being more strategic and targeted about how, where, and when we make reductions, and where we make investments enables us to not only strengthen our immediate financial outlook, but to also make collective progress to our primary goals of enhancing student success and making education work for all.

Every member of the CU Denver community contributes to the mission of the university and has a role to play in student success and our financial future. We invite members of the community to participate in the bi-weekly information sessions hosted by Chancellor Michelle Marks, Provost Constancio Nakuma, and EVC of Administration and Strategy Jennifer Sobanet, as well as to attend office hours hosted every week by members of the planning team. Additionally, faculty and staff were invited to participate in the processes established within their own schools, colleges, and units. We need broad participation from faculty, staff, and students to reach our 2030 vision.

Continue to visit the website for this project and check your email for updates and invitations to participate.

As we are determining which proposals will be accepted for budget reductions for FY 23-24, we have shared the proposals with cabinet, deans, and shared governance leaders for consultation. In April, after the proposals are accepted, we will share all the accepted proposals with the campus community.

We have decided to suspend the campus incentive based budget model while we move through our strategic realignment of resources budget project. The process that we are going through now is taking its place as we work together as a community over the next two fiscal years to establish budgets for our administrative and academic units that align with our priorities. In the event that our enrollment exceeds the budgeted levels and we have brought in total revenue over what we expected, we will allocate this out to the academic units to reward the growth.

Following a request from Chancellor Michelle Marks, the budget office has performed a detailed analysis on salaries and positions to help address this concern. The data shows that between 2020 and 2023, the number of positions with titles Assistant Vice Chancellor and above is exactly the same and salaries among these positions are flat on the whole. These findings were shared with Faculty Assembly leadership and to the broader campus community through an information session in February 2023.

Faculty Assembly, Staff Council, and Student Government Association leaders received the full suite of proposals submitted by schools, colleges, and units, and were invited into a consultative discussion with cabinet and deans in late February about which proposals to move forward. This structure was determined through a series of meetings with shared governance leaders, Provost Constancio Nakuma, and Executive Vice Chancellor of Administration and Strategy Jennifer Sobanet to develop a RACI Matrix for this project. A RACI Matrix is a common project management tool that allows stakeholders to determine, in advance of a project, who needs to be consulted or informed in each step of the project, and who is responsible and accountable for the work of the project.

No, there is not a hiring freeze, and there are no plans for furloughs. This budget and growth exercise will enable us to evaluate every aspect of the university’s design and operations. Some positions may shift. Some may be eliminated. Some may be critical that we fill. We need to carefully consider each position on a case-by-case basis.

At this time, there is no intention of canceling all travel. Each school, college, and administrative team will need to carefully evaluate what must continue and how, with an understanding that travel should advance our strategy and not conflict with our budgetary constraints. We are asking leaders to be judicious in their evaluation of what is needed and what will advance our strategic plan.

Yes. Like travel and vacancies, we are asking schools, colleges, and administrative units to review carefully and critically what is being offered and use good judgement.

No. Goal 1 of our strategic plan is to become the nation’s first equity-serving institution, and we take that commitment and responsibility seriously. Schools, colleges, and units will be asked to consider DEI as part of their decision making and leverage their departmental/unit DEI plans as an important reference point.

No. As with everything else, we need to look at budgets judiciously but, if our goal is to attract and retain more students at CU Denver, advertising, storytelling, and a strong brand and web presence are contributors to this aim. With respect to our branding efforts, the intention is to complete this work in-house.

While that was originally the plan, we have made the difficult decision to pause our planning for six months because of unfavorable market conditions and skyrocketing construction costs. This is obviously disappointing news, and we did not arrive at this decision lightly. We remain committed to finding innovative ways to conceptualize, finance, and build our engineering, building, if possible, because engineering, computing, and tech are in-demand and growing fields for our students, and we have seen strong enrollment growth in these areas. This would be a long-term investment for our campus. It is also important to note that the planned budget for the engineering building was not funded from our education and general (E&G) funds and, therefore, pausing the engineering building will not improve or worsen our current ongoing campus budget.

It will not. The planned budget for the engineering building was not funded from our education and general (E&G) funds. Since we have not issued debt, debt service for the engineering building is not incorporated into the E&G budget for FY 2022-23 or assumptions for FY 2023-24. Therefore, pausing the engineering building will not impact our current ongoing campus budget, nor will it change the work we are doing through the budget realignment initiative.

Being Colorado’s only urban public research institution is a differentiator for us, and one of the many reasons that our students—and faculty—choose to come to CU Denver. Research from our faculty brings important societal benefits to our state and world, and students at all levels benefit from a comprehensive research program as part of their formation and academic and career progressions. Naturally, just like any other category, we need to evaluate our research budget to make sure our investments are strategic, but we don’t have any plans to abandon our research mission.

At the February Board of Regents meeting, some of the CU campuses proposed scenarios with tuition increases of up to 5%, which would go into effect in fall 2023. Additionally, in keeping with university practice, CU Denver would increase financial aid to help offset financial increases for lower-income students. Increases to student fees are still being discussed and will be finalized before the April Board of Regents meeting.