KPU’s budgeting strategies aim for growth during period of frugal spending

How are students implicated along the way?

Kwantlen wishes it had a lot of things already.

Like the Chip and Shannon Wilson school of design. Or the recently approved student union building. Even though the observable universe has lots of it, space happens to be tight on KPU’s terrestrial campuses. Can’t say much about prospects for the KPU Mars campus at this point, either.

What we can say is that a lack of money is really keeping this spaceship from launching a couple of star systems further. It’s a lack of money that accounts for athletics teams getting cut, students having trouble getting into seats and perhaps even the university entering less-than appreciated mutual agreements with, uh, oil giants. But in spite of these financial frictions, KPU’s new VP of finance Jon Harding is optimistic about KPU’s future, and it’s all about the strategy.

“Really, with reduced funding, it’s forcing the university to take a harder look [at] the way it’s getting sources of funds [for] existing programs,” says Harding, who has a background in forensic accounting and was the director of financial services at the B.C. legislative assembly. “As far as impacting students, the expectation is to have as little impact on students and their quality of education as possible.”

According to the ministry of advanced education (AVED), The B.C. Skills for Jobs Blueprint gave KPU $496,720 for, “132 additional critical trades seats,” and $1.1 million for new trades training equipment to, “help students develop in-demand skills critical to supporting our economy.” But even though new seats pop up here and there, KPU’s full-time equivalent seats still sit at less-than half of the average B.C. post-secondary institution.

For residents of the South Fraser—the region that KPU serves—post-secondary access is subsequently much more difficult. On July 26, a senior HR student posted a petition in a KPU book exchange Facebook group which was critical of course availabilities in her department. She purported that many HR students had to consider delaying graduation because of the nature of class availability. Many finance and business students expressed the same concerns.

Post-secondary institution funding is a little skimpy these days. A 2014 KPU budget committee said they couldn’t rely on the government as a major revenue source anymore. They, like many other B.C. post-secondary institutions, have to get craftier when it comes to where they put their money. Administration isn’t running this ship into the ground or anything—Harding thinks the school is, “In a very good position financially.” Financial audits in March 2015 showed an $80.6 million surplus. Yet things are still tight. According to budget reports from the last five years, administrators have learned to expect less government money that directly runs the school, and those reports show the that exact trend. Capital funding from the government—the stuff that makes gymnasiums, extra classrooms and rocket stations should we need them—is also much smaller. Vice-provost of students Jane Fee says, “There is simply no capital right now—the government’s not giving universities capital,” and that, “The only way that the university is being built right now is by having private donors.”

The makeup of funding is changing. After fiscal year 2012/13, cash donations for capital expansion, special projects and student awards shot up by almost $5 million. That upshot doesn’t even reflect KPU Foundation donations (which students typically access), but rather donations going directly to the university.

All this fiscal tightness considered, Fee says that the university lobbies,“Every single day of the week with government.” And how’s that been going?

“Well, it’s not! It’s not,” says Fee. “It’s not just KPU, it’s really the state of higher education in Canada and in B.C. It’s not a time where the public seems to believe in investing in higher education, unfortunately.”

Nobody at AVED was available for an interview, but a spokesperson from AVED said in an email statement that KPU’s operating grant has increased 33 per cent (from $47.5 million in 2001/02 to $63.3 million in 2015/16), and that, “Public post-secondary institutions are autonomous and make their own decisions on how to best use resources.” Despite this information, the trend of government grants according to KPU’s data from fiscal years 2011–15 show decreasing figures, along with heightening tuition.

“What we now have to do,” says Fee, “is take our existing budgets, because we know there’s not gonna be money falling from the sky, and we have to in some cases realign those budgets to allow us to meet the goals of those plans.”

That implicates programs like KPU athletics, where budget reallocations sentenced award-winning sports teams to what will possibly be their final seasons.

KPU’s budget allocation committee in 2014 aimed to educate the university community in “financial realities” as part of the new budgeting model they created. They essentially wanted a model that was more transparent, that allowed for more flexibility for the university to respond to changing demands. A model that was altogether smarter. As part of new strategies, Harding says that the university is, “Looking at opportunities where we could meet demand for student programs.” So, if more business classes happened to be in demand, maybe the university could meet them there. He assures that demand is only one component, and that there are government mandates to grow certain program areas and curriculum.

Speaking to the recent athletics department budget cuts and Vision 2018, Fee says she wouldn’t call such moves “efficiencies,” but rather an “alignment of budgets.” No matter what you call it—alignment, allocation, cuts.—there will be an impact on the student level. It might mean playing your last season as a KPU Eagle. It might mean not getting into a core course. God forbid it means delaying your graduation.