Editor’s note: The following message was sent to the CSU community by the Steering Committee of the Budget Model Redesign Initiative on Feb. 9.

Dear Colleagues:

We are excited to engage with the CSU community on Phase 3: Design of the Budget Model Redesign Initiative to help create a new budget model that can further the financial prioritization of our mission areas and strategic priorities while also enhancing our flexibility in the changing higher education landscape. The Steering Committee will provide regular progress reports via email and online at: Budget Model Redesign Updates during this phase of the initiative.

Steering Committee Updates: December-January

The Steering Committee spent its initial meetings deciding on a process for its work along with identifying subcommittee topic areas. More recently the committee began to review feedback collected in the fall at campus engagement sessions, assess stakeholder needs, and explore budget model structures. This work has included: 

• Learning about the basic structures, parameters, dilemmas and similar themes that are included in common incentive-based budget models.
• Exploring different models from peer institutions and drawing upon the similarities and differences among those models.
• Assessing the framework and model for CSU’s current incremental budget structure, comparing the outside institutions to our current strategy. 

The Steering Committee is charged with delivering recommendations for a new budget model to the Executive Sponsor Committee, and to ensure the model design elements proposed by the Technical Committee align with our mission, guiding principles and strategic priorities, and achieve the best possible outcomes for CSU. Both committees are excited and committed to working collaboratively to develop a budget model that supports our mission, priorities, and prepares us for the future.

A graphical representation of the Budget Model Redesign governance structure for all three committees can be found on the Committees & Governance web page. The list of names and affiliations of all committee members is also posted on this page.

Upcoming Fora: Budget Model Redesign vs. Incremental Budget

University conversations on building a new budget model have been held independently of those explicitly focused on CSU’s current incremental/general operations budget. The latter conversations now include potential scenarios for the FY25 budget (i.e., July 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025).

• The Division of University Operations will host a hybrid open forum to discuss the incremental or general operations budget on Wednesday, February 14, 9-10 a.m. Again, this conversation is outside the scope of the Budget Model Redesign. More details including a Zoom link are available on the University Operations website: https://operations.colostate.edu/.
• The Steering Committee will host a hybrid open forum on the Budget Model Redesign Initiative in March. We will share information on the date, time, and location (including Zoom link) when available.

We encourage you to attend both these important fora. Steering Committee members will be attending the incremental budget session to hear community feedback and determine how it might inform the committee’s work.

Campus Community Collaboration

Broad collaboration and engagement across the University have been critical to informing this phase of the initiative. CSU solicited extensive campus engagement through stakeholder meetings, community fora, and Faculty Council presentations during the fall semester, and we continued to research and compile internal and external data for informing the design phase. All feedback collected has been and continues to be shared with the Steering Committee to help inform its deliberations and recommendations.

Please stay engaged and share your questions or feedback with us by email at budget_model@colostate.edu or through the Budget Model Redesign online feedback form. We want and need to hear from you!

Sincerely,

Steering Committee
CSU Budget Model Redesign Initiative

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 About CSU’s Budget Conversation Series

Colorado State University is inviting all faculty, staff, and students to engage in two different yet simultaneous series of campus conversations and listening sessions around the institution’s budget. The first series of conversations focuses on the University’s current budget for FY23-24 and FY24-25, referred to as the operating or Incremental Budget.

The second series of conversations focuses on options for renewing our budget model for an innovative future in alignment with our land-grant mission and institutional priorities. The goal is to design a budget model that enables greater creativity and increased agility while improving fiscal responsibility and transparency in our financial decision-making processes. This is what is referred to as the Budget Model Redesign.