ECU Fiscal Sustainability Initiative

ECU will engage with the general concept of fiscal sustainability during the current (2020-21) fiscal year as we adapt to mounting short- and long-term financial pressure. Our approach to adaptation must be a collective one. For those of you who have been around for a while, you know that ECU has coped with budget challenges since the great recession of 2008. In some cases, the financial pressure stemmed from a decrease in state appropriation (budget cut) and in other cases it stemmed from a shortfall in budgeted tuition and fees. You are aware that COVID-19 has served to intensify the existing (or anticipated) disruption to state and non-state funding. So, we need a plan to deal with short-run disruption and longer-term adaptation.

Past institutional-level planning efforts, such as the one announced here, included Program Prioritization (2011-12), which focused on academic programming, and was followed by ECU Fiscal Sustainability (2013-14), which dealt with a broader set of issues and adjustments. I either led or co-led those two efforts so I am intimately familiar with how necessary, difficult, and painful such campus processes are. Those processes were inclusive of our campus community and were as transparent as we could make them. So, this is not our first rodeo when it comes to a collective effort to engage with financial planning in order to provide a roadmap for future institutional adaptation.

The individuals listed here have been nominated/selected to serve on ECU’s Fiscal Sustainability Coordinating Committee (FSCC). As the label implies, this committee will be responsible for orchestrating the work of many existing campus work groups and constituents. They will seek the input and feedback of the entire campus community. The group will explore approaches to cost reduction, for example shared administrative services and possible revenue expansion like new online academic programming. The FSCC will use this information to develop data-informed recommendations to the Chancellor, and its work is to be concluded by June 30, 2021.

I want to thank the members of the Coordinating Committee in advance for this important work and I express gratitude to Dr. Michael Van Scott for leading this effort.

—Interim Chancellor Dr. Ron Mitchelson