University of Toronto's new budget allocation system and critiques

¶ … University of Toronto's strategic process?

On the surface, the new process of creating a budget at the University of Toronto seems sound. The University states that places its holistic needs over the needs of specific departments: "From its annual total revenues, each academic division will contribute a portion of its revenues to the University Fund" (Lighthall 2006). Then, the University defines its core, nonnegotiable and/or fixed costs by setting aside 10% of the available funds to meet top academic priorities. Faculty salaries, student aid, and other services the university cannot do without such as a library are given funding as a proportion of the University fund as well. Next, each division must make its case for funding based upon its stated academic plans and budgetary circumstances. In this review process, nothing is guaranteed, and the costs under consideration are not fixed. This is to make competition for available funds more competitive: "One advantage for academic divisions with the new budget system is it provides clear-cut incentives to increase revenues and control costs because that extra money will be the divisions to use to meet its academic priorities. They will also have an opportunity to participate in setting priorities for the services that the university provides centrally" (Lighthall 2006). There will also be an overall increase in transparency -- all members of the community will be able to see why and which departments are given more funding.