Balancing UMD's Budget

Dear Colleagues, 

Over the past several years, we have made much progress addressing UMD’s budget challenges. However, we have reached a point in time where our structural imbalance has stalled at about $4 million and has not improved over the last three years. Although it is difficult and painful, we must make tough decisions now to resolve our budget deficits and move forward in ways that strengthen UMD’s excellence, as we build a stronger financial foundation for the future. This is not an easy conversation or process for any of us, and I want you to be as informed as possible about the steps we are taking to resolve UMD’s structural imbalance and to strengthen what is already an outstanding university.  

So, I am sharing with you today a brief overview of where we are now and the process we will use to resolve our structural imbalance.

• UMD ended Fiscal Year 2019 (July 2018 - June 2019) with a recurring structural imbalance of $3.9 million in our O&M budget, which consists of expenses and revenues funded by tuition and state allocations.
• Based upon the allocation letter I recently shared with you, we expect to end the current Fiscal Year 2020 (July 2019 - June 2020) with an O&M structural imbalance of $4 million.
• In addition, we are expecting another required systemwide reallocation in FY 2021 of at least $1.2 million creating a UMD budget imbalance of about $5.2 million. 
• In order to resolve this structural imbalance, the vice chancellors and I have initiated plans for our campus to reduce our recurring expenses by $5.2 million effective in the 2021 fiscal year, beginning on July 1, 2020.

The vice chancellors and I are working with our deans, associate vice chancellors, and directors to identify budget reductions over the next few weeks, and hope to have plans for these reductions by mid November. We will then work with the Department of Human Resources, talk with system administration, and inform the individuals and areas directly affected. At the same time, we are requesting additional resource allocations from President Gabel and Senior Vice President Burnett, but we are aware that their options are limited this fiscal year.

This process will be challenging, but I have seen this campus rise up to meet challenges in a number of areas. If we keep our focus on enrollment, retention, student success, and excellence, I am confident we will grow even stronger as we move forward.  

I want to express my sincere gratitude for the passion and dedication I see in our faculty and staff every day, and I want to stress the critical importance you have in helping our students reach their aspirations.

Sincerely, 

Lendley C. Black
Chancellor