Continued support for need-blind admission, implementation of academic and student formation advancement plans, and full-service staffing at Boston College are the main themes behind the Boston College budget for the fiscal year that begins on June 1, 2009 (FY 2010).

Approved by the Board of Trustees at its March 6 meeting, the $767 million financial plan makes up a forecasted shortfall of some $70 million in endowment payout by cutting all administrative operating budgets by 2 percent, freezing salaries of $75,000 and more, and eliminating some vacant administrative positions, while requiring executive approval for filling other administrative vacancies. The new budget is also supported by increased external funding for faculty research; energy conservation gains; and the deferment of some capital expenditures such as the completion of the Gasson Hall refurbishment.

Boston College’s endowment, which stood at $1.7 billion at the conclusion of FY 2008, is estimated to have lost some 25 to 30 percent of its value since the onset of the recession.

In an e-mail report to employees following the trustee meeting, President William P. Leahy, SJ, said that the budget would permit Boston College to hire 50 faculty for September 2009, as was planned under the academic strategic plan. (The new-faculty complement has averaged 25 annually in recent years, said the provost’s office.) Leahy also noted that pending the City of Boston’s approval, the University was financially prepared to move ahead with the development of a humanities building on the middle campus beside the Dustbowl, and to construct donor-funded athletic fields on Brighton Campus, allowing for the construction of residence halls on Shea Field, leading to the further planned development of the lower and middle campuses.

Tuition for 2009–10 will rise by 3 percent—the lowest proportional increase since the mid-1970s—while available financial aid for undergraduates will increase by 7.3 percent, to a total of $74 million, in anticipation of greater student need. Total aid for undergraduate and graduate students will increase by $6.5 million, to $120 million.

The president also announced that he’d asked provost Cutberto Garza and executive vice president Patrick Keating to implement an “improved level of stewardship” of University resources through budget reviews across the campus. Among areas cited by the president as requiring attention was the productivity of full- and part-time faculty, duplications in administrative functions, and departmental procedures for budget planning, which, he said, needed to be strengthened.

As was reported at the March trustee meeting, some of this work is well under way. Administrative program reviews were begun by Keating in 2006 with the goal of providing better support for teaching and scholarship. “We’ve been through a few years” of piloting the effort, says Keating, “and the programs we’ve tackled thus far have been made more effective. Given the likelihood that the [economic] recovery will be slow, we’ve got the strongest possible incentive to ramp up the review.”

In the provost’s office, a faculty productivity study is nearing conclusion, and in a late-March e-mail to the faculty, Garza announced his intention to strengthen financial management in the colleges and schools by replacing Boston College’s long-standing practice of incremental annual budgeting with zero-based budgeting.

Garza told Boston College Magazine that in addition to 17 extended faculty searches, he hoped to be able to approve as many as 30 new faculty posts for FY 2010, under the strategic plan.

Whether the University can fulfill that ambition and others, however, will depend on the turns the economy takes over the next year and how those affect investment performance, fundraising, and the demand for financial aid. Says Keating: “Our operating budget is less dependent on endowment income than those of some other universities, so we didn’t have to make the dramatic cuts that some did for 2010; but we’ll still need to see some improvement in the economy to maintain momentum past next year.”

Senior vice president for advancement Jim Husson said that while the economy has slowed giving to Boston College as to other universities, donors continue to “support the Light the World campaign and to invest in BC, even if not at the level we have seen in recent years.” Husson, who expects cash receipts to be about 20 percent under last year’s record $101 million, noted: “What many worry about in an uncertain economy is that donors will start to feel uncertain about their commitment to their alma mater. We’re seeing none of that at Boston College.” The number of donors is, in fact, running slightly ahead of last year, he said, and “our friends always seem to be asking us: ‘What can I do to help?’—particularly in regard to financial aid and faculty support. Maybe the gifts aren’t as large, but the confidence in BC is right where we’d want it to be.”

Confidence was also explicit in the president’s final words to some 40 trustees at the March 6 meeting. “When you’re asked about Boston College’s financial circumstances,” Leahy said, “we want you to speak the truth. And the truth is that while there are unknowns ahead, we can rely on the strength and experience of the institution. BC has met financial crises before, and has always come out a better place. We’ll come out of this one a better place as well.”

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