July 31, 2018
Greetings to the University Community,
We are at the first stages of the process of putting together the budget for the coming academic year (October 1, 2018 – September 30, 2019). The budget plays a significant role in the management of the University and is at the center of many meetings and discussions. In this letter, I will describe, in short, the budget's principles and the timetable for its creation.
The University's budget for the current year is NIS 2.2 billion. The majority of the budget (about two-thirds) is funded by the Planning and Budgeting Committee (PBC) – the public entity in charge of the budgeting for the Council for Higher Education in Israel.
The PBC distributes funds to the higher education institutions according to their performances in teaching and research. The main parameter in the teaching sector is the number of students in the Bachelor's and Master's degree programs. Among the parameters in the research sector are the publications and success in securing research funding. The committee additionally allocates funds according to specific agreements – as such, we receive an additional amount to our budget due to an agreement we recently signed.
Several important points regarding the PBC's allocation of funds:
As we all know, if our performance in the different parameters improves –our share of the funds provided by the PBC will increase. This is one of the reasons that the improvement in the different parameters is among our main priorities, and we will continue to focus on them. Nevertheless, it is important to note that we also focus on academic components that are not included in the PBC's parameters. For example, we encourage publication of books in different fields in which book publications are a main research tool, despite the fact that the PBC does not fund this component.
The budget we receive from the PBC is based on all the parameters and the additional amounts. We use this budget for all of our operation, which includes: salaries, operation of the various sectors (Research and Development, Building and Maintenance, Marketing, etc.) and the payment of the rest of the University's ongoing expenses, including budgets for absorption of new recruits. Therefore, we provide inducements for improvement in meeting the parameters set by the PBC, but they are balanced and limited in order to prevent it from hindering our ability to provide a proper budget for the different activities.
Our timetable for building the budget is limited by the timetable of the PBC. Despite the fact that our budget-year begins in October, the PBC calculates its allocation in August, therefore, we finish planning our budget only in September. We would have liked our timetable to be earlier, but it is not in our control.
Our budget has several smaller sources, three of which are: 1. Donations – as I mentioned in a previous letter, while most of the donations are designated by the donors for specific purposes, a small share of donation funds is allocated to the ongoing budget. Among others, the donations have allowed the construction of the new Mandel Building, the Building for the Brain Sciences Center and fund the Mandel Scholarships we distribute. We have added another floor to part of the Social Science's building. We will soon build a building for teaching laboratories in the Faculty of Science, and in the future, we will add two additional floors in the Faculty of Law. In addition, we have recently launched a new fundraising campaign for various targets in the different departments of the University, to be carried out in the near future. 2. Tuition – since the tuition is set by the government, the tuition that we charge amounts to less than 10% of the budget. I will note that we receive a significant sum from the PBC for our number of students, which may be regarded as a supplement by the State to help supplement tuition. 3. Overhead that we charge for different activities.
We are certain that the University’s situation will improve as we develop additional sources of income. For this reason, we are vigorously working on the first stages of a process for developing assets of the University that are found on the outskirts of the different campuses. It is a long process that will begin to yield results only in years to come, but it is, nonetheless, a necessary process to which we are fully committed. In addition, we are developing the University's internationality, out of a belief that development in this department, along with its tremendous academic importance, has potential to yield budgetary gains.
I hope it is evident to us all that academic quality and budgetary wellbeing are dependent of one another. As any other public institution, the University is obligated to end every budgetary-year with a balanced budget. The more we enhance our budget, the more we will be able to invest in our varied academic activities and improve them. This is a joint cause for us all, and I believe that we will continue our commitment to it.
Enjoy a pleasant summer,
Asher Cohen