Fiscal year 2025 budget aligns with presidential and University priorities

June 20, 2024 

Dear Roadrunners,  

I am pleased to share with you that the Metropolitan State University of Denver Board of Trustees approved our fiscal year 2025 budget, which was largely in line with the recent recommendations from the University Planning and Budget Advisory Council and the budget priorities I laid out last fall.   

It was no small feat, considering the balance that budget representatives from across the University had to strike. This budget invests in our people, funds crucial projects and fosters fiscal health, while assuming a slight enrollment drop and lower tuition revenues next year. 

While this is a conservative estimate, it was necessary considering enrollment uncertainty that universities around the country are facing with this year’s FAFSA changes. However, we were determined not to let such challenges prevent us from crafting a spending blueprint that advances MSU Denver’s mission in a fiscally responsible way. 

I am proud of the proposal presented to the Board of Trustees last week, a budget that Chair Kristin Hultquist described as “the most strategic, inclusive and transparent” in MSU Denver’s history. The approved fiscal year 2025 budget advances the University’s Strategic Plan by: 

1. Investing in our people with a 2% compensation increase and $1 million in compensation equity

Supporting MSU Denver’s faculty and staff is the most important factor in helping students succeed and in preparing them for the modern workforce. This budget builds in a 2% compensation increase for all faculty members and non-classified full-time staff members and a 3% increase for classified employees (in alignment with state requirements). The budget also includes funding to cover the increase in Denver’s minimum wage on January 1, 2025, that will impact student employees. 

Staff members will see these increases in July paychecks and faculty members will see them when new contracts begin. Employees could see an additional compensation increase should enrollment exceed projections. The new budget also sets aside an additional $1 million to start addressing findings from a compensation-equity study, which is underway.  

2. Fostering fiscal health through a balanced budget and potentially bolstering reserves

Importantly, the budget is balanced, aligning revenue and costs while prioritizing employee compensation and meeting our mandatory costs. If enrollment is better than forecasted, a percentage of unspent funds will be directed into reserves at the end of the fiscal year, helping to bolster our fiscal health in case of any unexpected or outsized expenses (think the pandemic, or some other unforeseen financial issue). 

3. Supporting student success and advising structures

It is critical to our mission that we prioritize initiatives that support student success — defined by increased retention and degree-completion rates — with a particular focus on advising structures. The fiscal year 2025 budget includes an additional $83,000 in new spending on advising systems.  

4. Preparing Coloradans for the modern workforce 

Providing affordable pathways from the classroom to in-demand careers is key to our mission, and the new budget does that by ensuring that financial-aid programs like the Roadrunner Promise continue to offer no-cost education to students who need it the most. That means more students will have access to some of the most innovative learning opportunities in the state. Continued funding to operate and maintain these programs and facilities, including the planned Gina and Frank Day Health Institute tower and the University’s C2 Hub, allows us to fuel Colorado’s economy with highly skilled workers. 

5. Improving and maintaining critical infrastructure

Our fiscal year 2025 budget will help maintain our existing campus facilities as we partner with the Auraria Higher Education Center to sustain and improve them. It includes $16,000 for School of Hospitality preventive maintenance needs and restores $160,000 to the campuswide remodel budget, bringing that pool of funding back to pre-Covid levels. This is in addition to state and philanthropic funds already set aside for capital projects. 

Tuition and revenue 

The University relies on state funding and tuition revenue to fund operations. New in-state students will see a 3% increase in tuition, or an average of $357 per student, and out-of-state students will see a 4% increase. Student fees will increase from 1% to 5%. However, we will be holding tuition flat for continuing students thanks to MSU Denver’s Tuition Lock program. The Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships leveraged an array of institutional, philanthropic, federal and state support for which many of our students qualify. Thanks to that hard work, the average, annual out-of-pocket cost for full-time in-state students is just $2,600.

As I mentioned above, we balanced the fiscal year 2025 budget based on the conservative assumption that enrollment will decrease 1% from fall 2023, resulting in a $1.1 million reduction in revenue.   

• If enrollment exceeds projections by 1 percentage point or more, there will be an additional increase of 1% of total compensation, paid out as a flat dollar amount to all faculty members and non-classified professional employees. Also in alignment with our strategic priorities, any additional revenue will be directed to reserves to support the ongoing fiscal health of the University. 
• If enrollment falls short of projections by 1 percentage point or more, the University will postpone the additional funding to address recommendations from the compensation equity study to fiscal year 2026 and pause one-time new spending items.  

This budget centers our students and the ways we can best serve them. Each student who crosses the commencement stage is a manifestation of the work and resources that go into helping them achieve their dreams. I am grateful to work for an institution that puts our students first— both in word and deed. We’re putting our money where our mouth is. 

Thank you to the budget team, led by Chief Financial Officer Jim Carpenter. He and Budget Director Andrew Rauch will be holding information sessions on the fiscal year 25 budget this fall, so keep your eyes on the Early Bird for details.  

And thanks to all of you who engaged in our inclusive budget process and advocated for projects and programs that will advance the lives of our students. 

Sincerely, 

Janine Davidson, Ph.D. 

President, MSU Denver 

For more, please visit the Office of the Budget 

As fiscal-year 2025 budget planning shifts into high gear over the next few months, I want everyone in the Metropolitan State University of Denver community to be invested in the process. Now is the time to confer with your supervisor, chair or University Planning and Budget Advisory Committee (UPBAC) representative as you prepare to provide input into divisional budget proposals!

To guide this process, I have set our overall budget priorities for next fiscal year. These priorities are aligned with our 2030 Strategic Plan and the investments needed to ensure the future success of the institution. The departmental budgets that you develop likewise should align with the University’s Strategic Plan while keeping the following tenet top of mind.

All budget decisions at MSU Denver should recognize the importance of keeping the cost of education affordable for our students. This is critical to carrying out our mission, boosting degree-completion rates and improving upward social mobility. It is incumbent on us to spend our money as efficiently as possible to best serve our students. This includes providing faculty and staff with the tools and resources necessary to most effectively support students. Departments are charged with focusing on operational efficiencies and supporting students and faculty while returning savings or directing them to strategic priorities.

I’ve identified five spending priorities for the FY25 budget. Each of these priorities continues ongoing work to advance the objectives of the University’s Strategic Plan.

1. Investing in our people. Supporting MSU Denver’s faculty and staff is the most important factor in helping students succeed and in preparing them for the modern workforce. That’s why compensation is the largest and most important investment in the annual budget. Human Resources is implementing a pay-equity study that will evaluate employee compensation and will identify how best to structure compensation systems to maximize existing resources in this challenging economy. This priority aligns with Pillar V of the Strategic Plan – Organizational Agility and Sustainability.
2. Fiscal health. The budget needs to be developed within a context of ensuring the ongoing fiscal health of the University. That includes budgeting in a way that allows us to re-build our fund balances and developing new revenue streams to support all of our priorities. To rebuild funds depleted during the pandemic, we must increase reserves by 1% of the total operating budget every year, with the goal of building a reserve balance equal to 15% of our annual budgets by 2027. Healthy reserves not only help us address unanticipated needs; they also allow us to invest more strategically. We also need to increase revenue streams to support all of our priorities. An essential component of developing those revenue streams is building the infrastructure of University Advancement to allow it to continue the success of its ongoing fundraising campaign, build a healthy endowment and sustain fundraising beyond the campaign.
3. Student success/advising structures. It is critical to our mission that we prioritize initiatives that support student success – defined by increased retention and degree-completion rates – with a particular focus on advising structures. This priority aligns closely with Pillars I and II of our Strategic Plan.
4. Preparing Coloradans for the modern workforce. In addition to focusing on retention and completion, budgets should emphasize post-completion outcomes, industry partnerships, career pipelines and building a more diverse workforce. They should support the success of MSU Denver students as they enter and participate in the workforce following their journeys from high school through college. This priority aligns with Pillar III of the Strategic Plan, which calls for the University to play an active role in the community, and Pillar IV, which defines our commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion.
5. Infrastructure development. Finally, we need to support campus infrastructure. Four major building projects are in various phases of planning, including the C2 Hub, Health Institute and housing. Additionally, we need to maintain our existing campus facilities and partner with the Auraria Higher Education Center to sustain and improve them, a priority tied to Pillar V of the Strategic Plan.

In addition to designing budgets around these priorities, budget owners should review priorities from previous years (such as Stuff That Works) and incorporate into the FY25 budget only those proven effective. Please plan to sunset initiatives that have been less effective or consist of temporary activities.

Any requests for limited additional funding must be selected, ranked and proposed to University leadership and UPBAC based on the priorities outlined above.

Budget owners will receive a budget circular from the Office of Budget in early November. The document will include specific assumptions and instructions on preparing budget proposals.

Special thanks to the budget team, led by Chief Financial Officer Jim Carpenter. Powered by upgrades to our systems via Workday along with revamped processes, the team’s efforts to modernize our budget are already resulting in a more transparent and inclusive model. I hope that this direction for evaluating budget priorities helps you align priorities with your departmental budget proposals and with our mission of preparing our students for Colorado’s modern workforce.

Please learn more about the process and contact your UPBAC representative here.

Sincerely,

Janine Davidson, Ph.D.
President