THE FINANCIAL DANCE
The consulting firm of Miller & Cook returned to our campus last week. They have begun the process of working with the Administration and the community, on their suggestions for increasing enrollment for the coming year.
But as this, the third consultation (or audit, to use Mr. Dysart's word) in two years comes to a close, a question should now to be asked: Where, in a budget with some sources listed as having faced an $800,000 shortfall, has Goddard found the money to hire these consultants? A chance meeting with President Greene at last Tuesday's Community Meeting gave the Nudepaper the opportunity to ask this very question.
President Greene seemed highly optimistic about the consultants' anticipated effect on campus enrollment. He admitted that imposing their suggestions on Goddard's current situation would result in the loss of "some students," but appeared confident that these losses would be acceptable in the long term.
When asked about the way in which money was found to pay the consulting firm, Greene was disarmingly direct, admitting freely that they will be paid with money from next year's budget. The logic, it seems, is similar to that of racking up charges on a campus-sized credit card. No problem, right?
Wrong. The College Executive Committee (CEC) has been meeting regularly and often for the past few weeks, trying laboriously to achieve a budget proposal in time for the April 15 deadline imposed by the board. They have worked long and hard, but -- I am told by a reliable, well-informed member of the committee -- they have not set a budget yet. As a result of this, they have certainly not allotted any money for consulting firms (or, for that matter, anything else) for the coming year.
So what happens if the money President Greene has promised away doesn't get allotted in the budget? The committee member stated in opinion that, in that case, the President would be "in trouble."
But there's another problematic aspect to this situation. President Greene has stated that he wants to see the suggestions from Miller & Cook implemented immediately -- in order to reap the theoretical rewards of their wisdom this coming Fall. But that means that the money spent on Miller & Cook's visit is an expense for this fiscal year. So what?
Under the rules of Fund Accounting, which is the accounting system by which Goddard is run, any expense whose effects will be felt in a given fiscal year must be listed as an expense for that fiscal year. In other words, the administration, in failing to list the consultants as an expense in the 1995- 96 fiscal year, has effectively broken the rules which it sets forth as governing the accounting practices of the campus.
There are two ways in which this problem can be solved. One is to rewrite the budget expenses for this year to include Miller & Cook's fees, which may not be possible since we've apparently run out of money. The second is to implement the consultants' suggestions next year, which would have the added advantage of not expecting Goddard's admissions and financial aid teams to receive, organize, and implement the new ideas in an impossibly short time.
However the administration chooses to act on this matter, larger questions loom. Was this an isolated incident? Is there one set of rules for budget management at Goddard, or are they are as many rules as there are exceptions? Can facilitators, if they so choose, start spending against next year's budget? If so, perhaps the budget crunch can be solved more easily than we had dared to dream:
Just charge it to the Goddard credit card.
