Budget cut $140,000 due to lower enrollment

Employee raises are primarily offset by tapping a $2 million reserve account.
By HAROLD GWIN
Vindicator education writer
YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown State University Board of Trustees, prompted by a lower-than-anticipated fall student enrollment, has cut the fiscal year 2006 operating budget by $140,000.
The loss resulting from the lower enrollment numbers amounted to $620,000, but much of that was offset by higher-than-anticipated interest earnings on invested funds and additional state appropriations for the university.
The result was a net budget decrease of $140,000, according to documents approved by the trustees Wednesday.
It amounts to about one-tenth of 1 percent of the nearly $148 million spending plan.
The university adopts a new budget each June but can modify that document each quarter to reflect changes in funding or spending.
The fiscal year runs through June 2006.
The spending plan was approved at $147,868,000 in June of this year, but that was based on an anticipated fall 2005 full-time equivalent enrollment of 10,415. The actual head count is significantly higher but not all students are enrolled full time.
How it's figured
Full-time equivalent is determined by dividing the total number of student hours by a full-time semester load of 15 hours.
YSU wound up with a full-time equivalent enrollment of 10,332 and that's 83 less than anticipated .
Each full-time equivalent generates about $7,500 in annual revenue.
The loss from enrollment will largely be offset by $428,711 in projected additional income earnings on invested university funds. Total interest earnings are now expected to reach $3,626,579.
The modified budget also shows $51,289 in additional state appropriations projected for this year, bringing the total state contribution to $42,258,221.
The expenditure side of the budget shows nearly $3 million in additional salary and fringe benefit costs because of new employee contracts and raises granted to non-represented staff.
However, that is offset by tapping a $2 million budgetary reserve created for that purpose, reducing spending on strategic initiatives by $660,000 and reducing allocations to other university reserves and accounts by nearly $300,000 more.
The university is already making preparations for fiscal year 2007, showing a preliminary budget of $150,668,000.
But that spending plan is based on a proposed 6 percent tuition increase which has yet to win trustee approval. The tuition issue is to be addressed at the board's March 17, 2006, meeting.
gwin@vindy.com