University Business - October 2009 - (Page 20)

Dear Reader: On behalf of my colleagues at GovConnection, I’d like to thank you for your continued interest in our series on the federal stimulus package and its impact on higher education. We understand that colleges and universities face unprecedented fiscal challenges. For instance, with technology playing such a key role in every aspect of higher education, the need to maintain and improve your school’s technology infrastructure is more important than ever. Yet budgets are being constrained across the board. Well, we believe there is a solution—and it revolves around planning as much as it does pricing. GovConnection stands ready to work with you as your technology planning partner. Our many years of experience serving the higher-ed market makes us uniquely qualified to help institutions like yours develop a customized solution that will meet your needs and budget. We know the constraints you face, but we share your dedication to providing your students and staff with the best possible technology infrastructure. With planning and creativity, we believe it is possible even in today’s environment to meet that goal. Please call us to find out how GovConnection can help your institution keep its technology program on track. Sincerely, Kevin Hegarty Vice President and Chief Financial Officer University of Texas, Austin I suspect that every InstItution, whether public or private, is addressing some sort of budget challenge. seeking monies available under the american recovery and reinvestment act of 2009 “There are capital is one strategy that might be deployed by expenditures that your campus. your focus in figuring out how to put the federal stimulus monies can have an ongoing to work for you should be on the fed- recurring benefit for eral grants award process and/or the alyour campus.” location process employed by your state. understand that in nearly every case, the federal government intended for the stimulus monies to be spent for capital spending and infrastructure, not for paying the operating cost of your institution. But remember, there are capital expenditures that you can make today that have an ongoing recurring benefit for your campus that can effectively reduce your recurring expenses. a substantial amount of the stimulus monies have come through the federal grant award process. research universities will have a natural advantage in winning these monies because they have existing processes for writing grants. If you are not a research institution, my advice would be to partner with a research institution and attempt to win a share via collaborative grants as a subcontractor to the principal grantee. at ut austin, we have been successful in winning several million dollars of grants to purchase specialized equipment for our research labs. the companion effect has been a noticeable increase in our ability to attract some of the best graduate students from across the world. those graduate students teach thousands of credit hours, thus reducing the cost per hour taught. remember that the stimulus monies are not recurring. If you find your institution having to deal with what you believe may be a temporary deficit, the federal stimulus monies might be used to fund capital asset acquisitions that would otherwise have been funded from your recurring operating budget, if debt- or lease-financed. For example, some institutions might solve such a deficit by simply not replacing computers in their normal cycle. recognize however, that some federal stimulus monies might, in fact, be used for these acquisitions, providing the same relief to your operating budget, but having the companion effect of maintaining your computer refresh strategy. so, how you put the stimulus monies to work on your campus depends, in large part, on your view of whether you are dealing with a temporary or a chronic deficit. the stimulus monies can be useful in either scenario, but you should be careful to understand the nature of the deficit that you’re trying to address. Robert Howard President GovConnection, Inc. 800-800-0019 2 | GovConneCtion

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - October 2009

University Business - October 2009
Contents
Editor's Note
College Index
Company Index
Advisory Board
Behind the News
Viewpoint
Financial Aid
Lessons in Video
Dining Halls of Distinction
Lost in Space
Independent Outlook
Internet Tech
End Note

University Business - October 2009