College's finances - worrying news

Time Magazine

I was in the Ussher avoiding studying so I decided it was time to check up on the Treasurer of the College (Grace Dempsey, B.Comm, Grace Dempsey, B.COMM. (N.U.I.), M.A., DIP. PROF. ACC. (N.U.I.), F.C.A.) and see if she had put up the College's accounts for the year.

Luckily I had remembered the folder that they're held in (/Fin Statements/) and stumbled upon this - a very detailed PDF of the College's finances.

Now, we all know that the College is strapped for cash. I mentioned this on this forum this time last year when I noted the alarming increased usage of private sponsorship/funding, as opposed to relatively minor increased funding from our benevolent government.

To those of you who aren't accountants, here's a rough summary of the Finances of the College, year ended September 30th, 2005:


Income
State Grants: €84.9m - up a meagre 3% on previous year, despite ~5% national income growth and this increase barely covers inflation.
Academic Fees: €72.8m - up 9.2% on previous year.
Research Grants: €58.1m - up 21.6% on previous year.
(There are other incomes, not much to speak of).
Total Income: €265.6m - €5.1m a week, up 7.5% on previous year.

Expenditure
Staff Costs: €183.3m - up 8.9% on previous year.
Other Operating expenditure: €58.9m - up 20% on last year.
Total Expenditure: €275m - up 14% on last year.

Deficit for Year: €9.4m - from a €5m surplus last year.

It's disappointing to note that despite College expenditure rising by 14% last year, State funding only increased by 3% - taking only just over a fifth of the increased spending.

However, for me at least, more worrying information comes further down in the accounts.

Taking the Consolidated Statement of Historic Cost Surpluses and Deficits on p. 13, we can see the Historical cost deficit/surplus fell from a €19.5m surplus to a €3.7m deficit.

Furthermore our 'Cash at bank' amount fell from €19.3m to €7.3m - only 38% of our cash at the bank as of last year remains. This appears not to be due a less favourable debtor/creditor balance - in fact the opposite appears to be happening. Our debtors due fell from €59m to €43m so we're about 30% cash richer than we were on that front while our creditors (those we owe) increased from €108.9m to €130.8m - a 20% increase. Perhaps there is some reprieve in the fact that our short-term deposits nearly doubled from €63.8m to €114.6m, but how financially sound are we even with that?

I'm not an accountant so perhaps I am missing out on something, but I can't see a very strong case being presented against these figures. Universities all over the world are expanding with huge capital investments while we are falling into the red. It appears as though something has to change. Perhaps spending could be curtailed (health centre, anyone?), but that would invariably be to the College's long-term detriment. Private funding has increased substantially for several years and will continue to do so but to relatively limited effect. There then exists, to me, only two choices left. Both of them fall at the feet of the population - either increase direct funding or re-introduce genuine fees.

xeduCat

You might want to talk to someone who was involved with the Board or Finance Committee or so on in 05/06 (or dig around in the published minutes) as there was a) lengthy discussion of a couple of the issues (as I recall - haven't got time to search now) and b) also on shaky memory of something I read, a few changes in accounting practice etc to come into line with other institutions and with public accounts stuff.

The lack of public funding is not a new thing, you just need to see the small increases in the estimates/budget to know that this sort of imbalance is the consequence. It's no secret, our government doesn't love higher education (although they promise great rewards for 'fourth level', presumably the students who are being screwed at existing third level will just magically progress into cash-rich researchers. Right).

xeduCat

Another thing on the deficit, again from shaky memory (this time from my own time being involved) there was a letter sent (as required under the universities act 1997) to the HEA, by all universities, notifying the intention to approve a deficit budget. This would obviously lead to deficit financial statements for the following years and I suspected subsequently (not in connection with privileged information, but in later dealings while with USI and talking to lobbyists/other reps - note that I was not a member of the HEA and thus no conflict of interest arises in this post :-P) that as part of the universities' lobbying for public funding (separately and through the IUA) they were quite happy to all declare deficits to up the stakes. The IUA (irish universities association) were very active in calendar year 05 in trying to get a favourable result, and published a hard document towards the end of that summer - much of which made it into the December 05 budget as provision for third level reform and for research over a five-year period. So that may be connected.

Incidentally an article by Seán Barrett was published in the Irish Times today on restructuring and university finances. Based on a longer thing from Administration (a periodical). Shockingly bad editing, though. Not sure whose fault!

europerson

xeduCat wrote:

Incidentally an article by Seán Barrett was published in the Irish Times today on restructuring and university finances. Based on a longer thing from Administration (a periodical). Shockingly bad editing, though. Not sure whose fault!

I have to agree: it was as if someone just cut and pasted parts of the entire journal article.

Interestingly, College's estates are valued at over €600m.

BessBoy

Readn the article, and its shockingly badly written, Barrett slams research activities and scatterguns allegations and assertions without mercy.

Armed with the power of the internet, and remembering econlit , I did some checking on whos publishing what where. Dr Sean doesnt come out that well, with 7 articles since 1979, or something around 1/3 of an article per annum. TCD has 240 or so in econlit, with fairly good representation from Drudy, O'Hagan, Lane, Lucey, Kearney, O'Rourke, Ruane and a good smattering of people I never heard of and guess are retired/dead/moved or whatever.

Wouldnt SB be in a better position were he to be publishing and teaching, as he says that thats what the staff are hired to do? Am I being unfair? hes a lively teacher and seems a really nice guy.

Tricity Bendix

BessBoy wrote:

Readn the article, and its shockingly badly written, Barrett slams research activities and scatterguns allegations and assertions without mercy.

Armed with the power of the internet, and remembering econlit , I did some checking on whos publishing what where. Dr Sean doesnt come out that well, with 7 articles since 1979, or something around 1/3 of an article per annum. TCD has 240 or so in econlit, with fairly good representation from Drudy, O'Hagan, Lane, Lucey, Kearney, O'Rourke, Ruane and a good smattering of people I never heard of and guess are retired/dead/moved or whatever.

Wouldnt SB be in a better position were he to be publishing and teaching, as he says that thats what the staff are hired to do? Am I being unfair? hes a lively teacher and seems a really nice guy.

He has fourteen records in the library catalogue, all of which are post 1979.

Either way, you are being unfair when you assert he doesn't teach. That is blatently untrue.

BessBoy

b.ie curious wrote:

He has fourteen records in the library catalogue, all of which are post 1979.

Either way, you are being unfair when you assert he doesn't teach. That is blatently untrue.

Ok. The use of the conjunction AND joins two things together. He teaches well and does some reserach. Not a lot, some.
As for the 14 things most are not peer-reviewed papers. Econlit is the definitive source, or so the economics dept tell us, of peer reviewed papers.

Main point - assersions need to be backed by facts.

Tacitha

I looked at the original article last night - much more extensive, and the assertions are indeed backed up there, mostly with data from state and academic studies. It's not bad though one could quibble here and there. Don't know what purpose the bowdlerized version in the Irish Times was meant to serve though.

Won't get into the debate about Sean (couldn't do it briefly) but, he's never going to be the one-size-fits-all academic, is he? A lot of the point of his article in the longer version, reflected a little in the IT, is that the publication imperative is recent and not terribly helpful.