One of the key initiatives of the Baruch College Strategic Plan 2023-2028 is to strengthen transparency and understanding of the budget and the budget planning process. Now that FY 2025 New York State Budget has been announced, and the College’s financial plan projects a stable future, this is the ideal time to move forward with this key initiative and promote fiscal sustainability through Activity-Based Budgeting.
Activity-Based Budgeting, sometimes referred to as Incentive-Based Budgeting, is considered a best practice in higher education financial management. This method aligns financial incentives with institutional goals while accurately tracking and allocating costs to activities. By providing a transparent framework, it rewards innovation and entrepreneurial endeavors and promotes operational effectiveness. This approach facilitates data-informed resource allocation decisions, ensuring that resources are strategically focused on priorities. Additionally, it enhances our fiscal effectiveness and sustainability—better positioning us for long-term planning and resource management.
We took initial steps in this strategic initiative in 2022 and 2023 by forming a cross-college working group—with faculty, staff, and administrators—to establish baseline methodology and to identify key revenue sources and expense categories for the new budget model. To advance this initiative further and help guide the final design of the budget process, we have selected an experienced consultant familiar with similar endeavors at our higher education peers. The consultant will start some of the preliminary work and getting to know our systems in the coming months.
As is the case of our Strategic Planning Process, a collaborative and inclusive process will be critical in the successful transition to Activity-Based Budgeting. We will kick off the campus-wide engagement on Tuesday, September 3, 12:30–2 pm, in the Newman Vertical Campus, Simon Conference Room 14-220. An official invitation will be distributed in August.
I will provide you with periodic reports as we make progress in the implementation of Baruch’s Strategic Plan. Strengthening transparency and understanding of the budget and the budget planning process is an important step for us to increase efficiencies, improve processes, and leverage data for strategic and sustainable decision making.
S. David Wu
President, Baruch College
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