WKU Finance Committee meets to approve budget recommendations
On Tuesday morning, the Western Kentucky University Finance and Budget Committee convened inside the Martin Regents Room in Jody Richards Hall to discuss and approve several recommendations for the development of the 2018-2019 operating budget.
The unanimously approved recommendations included:
- Approval for the proposed increase of $50 in the online course fee assessed to full-time students
- Approval for a 4% increase in tuition for all full-time students for the 2018-19 school year
- Approval for a 4% full-time employee salary increase pool
- Approval for the FY 2019 Budget Balancing Plan
WKU President Timothy Caboni said he was very pleased with the respectful and insightful discourse that took place among the committee members.
"Having a transparent and open conversation around how the university is financed and how it runs is always important for us," President Caboni said.
Throughout the course of the meeting, several questions and concerns were raised surrounding the quartet of proposals, but the focus of all the responses remained on making sure that the educational experience of the students remains the same.
"We are absolutely a student-centered, applied research university," Caboni said. "Every conversation we have must start with, ‘How does this affect our students? How do we help them graduate, and how do we support them?’ I was really pleased that that was the focus of all of our conversations today."
Final decisions on these recommendations will not be made until the WKU Board of Regents holds its 2018-2019 operating budget meeting on June 22, 2018. However, President Caboni says he remains confident that they’ll be able to come to the best resolution for both the students and the university as a whole.
"This is a bit of a new process for us as a university," he said. "The committee structure really getting active and engaged in fulsome conversations about where we’re headed. I think it puts us in a much better place for the end of June."
