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Budgets reflect priorities

In economics, we call this revealed preference. Don’t listen to what people say, look at where they spend the money. The UAUO faculty union is collecting signatures for a petition to the UO Board of Trustees about the UO budget and the UO administration’s spending priorities, here.

7 Comments

  1. dog 06/11/2015

    About the petition wording:

    A one-year “deficit” has been presented as a justification for austerity, despite the $10 million surplus over the biennium.

    –> isn’t that supposed to be $100 million ?

    The budget model now in place uses student majors to determine where funds flow on campus, but disregards general education courses, minors, and certificates as criteria for allocating those funds. A new system of charging students credit-by-credit is causing a drastic dislocation in student registration for non-major courses.

    –> This statement is a bit to general and not accurate. While the student majors carry significant (unfortunate) weight, there are additional elements in the new budget model.

    “Drastic dislocation” probably needs to be backed up with some evidence.

    I would like to see this budget model paragraph cleaned up a bit, expanded and made more accurate and specific.

    • uomatters Post author | 06/11/2015

      Dog, “The perfect is the enemy of the good”. Sign the damn thing.

      • dog 06/11/2015

        but is it 10 or 100 mill?

        • Ghost of budgets past 06/11/2015

          Over the past two years, it is ~$10 million. Total surplus is currently ~$80 million.

          • that effing Canis again 06/11/2015

            thanks
            that was my point of numerical confusion, now cleared up

      • Daffy duck 06/11/2015

        Dog is right, a document with obvious problems is too easily dismissed regardless of how many sign. I will not be signing this version, but a few clarifications on numbers and a few tweaks to the budget model para would make me sign

        • Outsider 06/13/2015

          It looks like the petition was edited to address these concerns.

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