I am writing to follow up to my message of July 8, regarding our business plan and budget for 2020-2021 and the expenditure reduction strategies that address the significant revenue loss related to COVID-19, due to decreased enrolments and other revenues. With this process now complete, I wanted to provide an overview as we move forward.
As we navigated an extremely challenging budget recalibration, we have tried to stay true to the core principles that we identified to guide the process in early May:
- Commitment to transparency;
- Minimizing the impact on students and our employees;
- Avoiding permanent changes to address what we know will be a temporary financial challenge wherever possible;
- Positioning Niagara College to thrive in the recovery period that lies ahead.
As our revenue challenges became clearer through the spring, we first identified non-salary measures to address our revenue gap. This work identified projects and improvements that could be deferred or delayed where risk to our operations is manageable, as well as significant cuts to discretionary spending. Past surpluses, driven by our entrepreneurial spirit and prudent fiscal management have also helped to mitigate this challenging fiscal period.
We also identified a total of 90 vacant full-time positions college-wide that will be left unfilled including 28 administrative positions, 39 faculty positions and 23 support staff positions. The VP, International and VP, Student Success positions, which were initially scheduled to begin early this fall, will now be deferred until 2021. In the interim, I will oversee these important portfolios beginning September 1.
As I outlined in my message on July 8, addressing our budget shortfall has also required temporary reductions of full and part-time employees in the support staff and administrative groups, particularly where decreased activity has resulted in less work. These challenging decisions include closing Benchmark restaurant for the Fall and Winter terms and reducing athletics and recreation programming following the Fall semester suspension of varsity athletics across the Ontario system. This difficult process is now complete, and we look forward to the time when we can welcome these valued members of our college community back to their positions.
I want to recognize the real challenges that all of you have experienced – through this budget recalibration process, to adapting our programs, services and our daily work to a new and unexpected reality. Thank you for your resilience, hard work, and ability to be flexible and innovative; it is the reason that Niagara College will succeed and lead in the better days that lie ahead, as a driving force in the economic recovery of our community.
