Dear UMD Colleagues:
In case you have not heard, I am extremely pleased to share with you the announcement President Joan Gabel made Friday morning during the Board of Regents meeting. President Gabel announced that she is allocating over the next two years approximately $6.8 million in one-time funds to eliminate our sequestered deficit. The sequestered deficit is the negative balance which was created over the past few years by the annual structural imbalances of our O&M budget. The actions we have taken recently on campus will eliminate UMD’s current structural imbalance by the end of Fiscal Year 2021, and President Gabel’s actions will also eliminate the sequestered deficit by the end of Fiscal Year 2021.
Elimination of these deficits puts UMD on a much firmer financial foundation and positions us to respond with more creativity and innovation to the financial challenges we will likely face in the future. However, our work is not done. Tuition revenues and state funding are critical to our ongoing success, and we must be diligent in our focus on recruitment and retention. In addition, we will continue to partner with President Gabel, Senior Vice President Burnett, members of the Board of Regents, and our elected officials to advocate for additional state funding coming to UMD. As we have done in the past, we will work with the UMD Strategic Planning and Budget Committee to help us refine our plans and strategies for the future.
President Gabel has indicated over the past few months that she will partner with UMD to address our budget challenges. Her actions Friday are a major step forward in this process, and her statements indicate her tremendous empathy for what we are experiencing and her commitment to UMD as a core part of the University of Minnesota System. We appreciate her commitment to UMD and the support we are receiving from Senior Vice President Burnett, other System leaders, and the Board of Regents.
Please contact me or one of the UMD Vice Chancellors if you have questions or would like additional information.
Sincerely,
Chancellor Black
