Monday, 5/5/97 Administration, faculty debate merits of new
funding system Plan created to maximize effectiveness of money
given to schools
By Mason Stockstill Daily Bruin Contributor As UCLA prepares to
implement its new fund allocation system, administrators and
faculty are working overtime to address any concerns regarding the
new system before it is put in place permanently. The difference
between Resource Center Management (RCM) and the current fund
allocation system is that under RCM, schools and colleges would be
allotted funds in excess of what they are currently given but
charged for services that were previously free. Because of the
perennially shrinking amount of money UCLA receives from the state,
administrators decided that better internal fiscal management is
necessary for the university to continue to function properly. "The
critical question facing UCLA in the next several years may not be
the total amount of resources available to support our academic
programs," Chancellor Charles Young’s letter read. Instead, that
question is "the management of fiscal resources to maximize the
ability to offer the full breadth of the educational program that
has been long expected of UCLA," Young continued. It is for this
reason that administrators took a good look at how state funds were
allocated at the university, and decided to make the departments
more responsible for where their share of the funds are spent.
"Departmental units will be more aware of the costs they incur,"
said Assistant Vice Chancellor Paula Lutomirski. "This will let
departments rethink their budget strategies, and eventually cause
more efficiency," she continued. However, despite claims
administrators have made regarding RCM as a cure for UCLA’s
financial concerns, it still has its share of potential problem
areas. "RCM has evolved a great deal since the project began," said
RCM Project Manager George Letteney, "and there have been many,
many concerns raised in that time. A common concern is the lack of
a mechanical model of RCM that shows exactly where allocations will
go, Letteney said. "There is no such model because, as under the
old system, revenue allotments will still be up to the chancellor
and the executive budget committee," he continued. Letteney
addressed potential student concerns, such as the advent of course
fees and layoffs, by saying that any changes that are induced by
RCM would be implemented slowly. "It will not be a chaotic
situation," he said. In the beginning of RCM’s implementation,
there will be a period of what Letteney calls "revenue neutrality."
"Since schools will be allotted more money, but have to pay for
services that were previously free, they will end up with no more
or less revenue than they would under the old system," Letteney
said. It is for this reason that there is little chance of schools
instituting course fees because of RCM, administrators said. But
faculty members and administrators still have numerous concerns
about the new system – many of which cannot all be immediately
reconciled. Problem such as these are handled by one of several
committees that are specifically created to handle problem
situations that arise as a result of RCM. The three governance
committees currently handling RCM are the Sponsor’s Committee, the
Transition Steering Committee and the Principals and Strategies
Committee. Each committee handles issues depending on what category
the issue falls under. RCM is currently in a "parallel test" phase,
which means that every department on campus, while using the old
system of fund allocation, will run a simulation of how things
would be different if RCM were the actual system in place. Young
based the UCLA version of RCM on similar systems in place at
educational institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania and
Indiana University. The goal of the RCM task force, though, is not
to replicate those institutions’ systems, but rather "to develop
the specifics of an RCM system tailored to the unique
characteristics and needs of UCLA," the chancellor said in a letter
introducing the system. The chancellor called for a shift in the
balance of resource development and deployment from central
authority to the separate operating units. "With this shift in
balance comes another revelation: that increasingly central
administrative units are supported by school-specific revenues
rather than by state appropriations," Young wrote. "The schools
should therefore know the costs of the services they pay for, and
have a say over cost and quality," he added. Previous Daily Bruin
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