As the end of the semester approaches PBA departments and clubs prepare to give the year's financial report, each hoping to avoid being selected for the annual budget cuts sweepstakes.
"Every penny not spent is a dollar we can cut," said the academic provost. "If they don't use it, then they obviously don't need it."
The objective is to minimize unnecessary budgeting, but what seems to take place is merely the removal of all funds not spent in a given year, thereby defeating any department incentive to save money.
Easy solution, spend every possible dollar, whether necessary or not.
For the School of Education and Behavioral Studies, not only is their budget being threatened, but also their computer lab in downstairs Borbe, granted they do not prove its necessity.
"All they need is poster boards and velcro anyways right?" asked an administrative financial advisor, as he measured the room for a conference table.
The elementary art students were therefore required to construct life size mannequins to occupy the lab 24 hours a day. One student earned a C on the assignment when she created an angry faced mannequin, however it was still needed to fill the administrative quota of room occupants.
Residence Life will already see less money for each dormitory's budget next year.
Student Activities put forth a valiant effort to avoid a budget cut, purchasing 500 million frisbees, 83,000 derby hats, 461 kazoos, 978 miles of construction paper, and enough trick yo-yo's to fill the commuter lounge, top to bottom, 23 times.
The winners of the budget cuts sweepstakes will be announced later this month. Good luck to all.
32 comments:
Sadly, most of the Ed department part of this post is true...I hope that we don't loose the lab but students don't frequent it as much as they used to. On the bright side, we have a few tricks up our pedagogical little sleeves...hopefully we won't be one of the departments that gets hit hard.
The theater department has wisely decided to purchase 6 fluffy white shirts (on sale at Target this week only), 2 slightly used walking sticks found in the bargain bin at Goodwill and a quart of white Walmart paint, in order to use up the rest of the department's budget allotment.
duh der I don no wat teh reel storie iz can u help me bacun?
many departments around school are having their budgets cut, or simply whatever money is not spent in the previous year is seen as excessive, and therefore often times justified in being removed from the program's budget. departments then merely spend all the money they have left over before the semester is through. it's a self-defeating system, because programs constantly fear losing funds, and lose all incentive to save what is left over. At least that is what i have noticed in departments i have worked in.
but come on guys we all know the elementary education majors only really need poster board and velcro...maybe some construction paper and crayons every now and then...
Don't worry "that's what she said"
I hope you don't "loose" the lab either.
good luck.
should a janitor really be critiquing spelling errors? Sorry for the extra "o".
What do ed majors need their own lab for? There are labs in almost every dorm, the commuter lounge, there are three of them on the 2nd floor of rinker and one of those is a 24 hour lab. The computers that are in there are pieces of crap anyway. I say donate them to some charity and open that room for classes. If they do that, maybe they can stop using Bor 132B. That room sucks, pillar in the middle of the class, hot one day, freezing the next. If they keep the lab, I say move the computers in there and open up the ed lab to classes.
the ed lab is used for classes, several in fact.
It is used for classes but it is otherwise pretty much empty...i think it should be open to non-ed majors as well. Teachers that have a class in the lab could lock the doors when the class was in session so other students wouldnt interupt. The only problem with changing up the lab or completely killing it off would be that it was donated to the school of education and was financed for the purpose of those students specifically.
The spend-it-all-before-the-deadline phenomenon is pretty universal; PBA is hardly the only institution at which this happens. It's a wasteful system, true, but hardly unique.
So basically the system promotes those that would be least efficient... No wonder the cost to get an education at PBA will now surpass $30,000 (between tuition room and board 2008-2009). I really find it difficult to understand why in four short years the cost of going to PBA has gone from $22,000 to $30,000. Where is the extra $8000/per year going??? Lets see $8,000*3000(students)=$24 million. Where is it all going? The food and on campus living hasn't gotten any better and as can be discerned from the comments, there has been an exodus of quality teachers. Its not the library because they raised money for that, definitely not the theater trailer park village... Just curious but does anyone know if PBA practices Open Accounting? It would be interesting to find out where are this money is going.
I'm an outsider here, but please students, don't forget the cost of living here in South Florida! Between rising taxes and rising insurance, along with the cost of a house (and its recent depreciation)the rise of gas prices and everyday items it is hard to survive here in the Palm Beaches. I'm talking about teacher's salaries. It would be a good exercise for those critical of increases to 1) compare the prices with other private Christian schools and 2)notice and note how many teachers spouses also work, in order to make ends meet. I challenge you to ask your teachers privately if they own a home or condo, or rent or lease. I bet most can't afford a home. It's too expensive here!
This has nothing to do with the exodus of teachers- that's another subject. I'm talking about living and raising a family in South Florida on teacher's salaries. That got to be hard!
Concerning the issue of the budget: It is very true that PBA is not the only institution with its departments scrambling to use up every penny given. If you don't use the money it gets taken away and the decrease in next year's budget doesnt allow for little extra things the department wants, much less the materials it needs. Coming from someone who sees how the department budget is spent, know that some money IS definitely wasted on things the department doesnt need. However, this is only in order to keep next year's budget intact and acts as a safety net considering when cuts happen, departments never know how much will be taken away.
Also, so far as how much PBA is charging us...last year the school's insurance got way way more expensive and actually left us in a sort of mini-crisis as to how to solve the problem. Obviously the answer is higher tuition but these departmental budget cuts also probably have to do with it.
to where have all the $$$ gone...
In order to decrease the teaching load of the faculty, more positions have been approved and filled which means we have more employees today when compared to a few years ago. Also, insurance has increased at least 2 million in the last 3 years alone. While money has been raised to pay for the library building itself, the opporating costs of the library comes from the budget. Opporating costs would include, AC costs, staffing, electricity, etc.
Also, it's not as simple as multiplying the increase in tuition by 3000 students. Not only did we not have 3000 students 8 years ago, but it also didn't cost students 30,000 eight years ago. Not to mention at least 90% of students get some sort of financial aid and very few have to pay the full sticker price in order to come here.
PBA does charge and spend a lot more money than it used to, but i doubt it's 24 million and as you can see, there are logical ways to account for most of it. That being said, looking into the concept of open accounting and seeing the books would be interesting.
"In order to decrease the teaching load of the faculty, more positions have been approved and filled which means we have more employees today when compared to a few years ago."
I don't know about that since we had the mass exodus last year.
didn't we have just as many (or close to it) new faculty this year as faculty that left last year? Maybe the Bacon could do some research for us.
Anonymous: 1) Your argument that other Christian schools are expensive (Liberty $21k, Regent less than $20k collegboard.com) is like arguing that California Residents pay 8.5% sales tax AND income tax so FL can justify increasing sales tax and start charging income tax because California is a poorly run mess. Holding other expensive schools up as an excuse for inefficiency doesn't cut it in my mind 2) I do sympathize with the staff who have to live with South FL prices but lets consider the following: Departments intentionally wasting money on frivolous items to not have their budgets cut alongside the fact that our staff is having difficulty getting by. Maybe we shouldn't be wasting money and maybe we should start paying employees better.
To info for the masses and question the skeptics: essentially my argument stays the same now that we have new numbers to work with. Insurance has gone up by $2million in three years, as stated the student body has also increased in the past three years. Some operating expenses have increased (the library) but that still does not add up. It would stand to reason that as the student body got larger you would be able to spread out the rise of insurance costs over a LARGER student body. Instead of having 2000 students pay for the insurance you now have 3000 students paying for insurance. Let me illustrate 2000 students paying for $10 million (arbitrary number) in insurance comes out to (10,000,000/2000)=$5000 per student on the other hand throw in a 20% increase of $2 million and an increase in student body (12,000,000/3000)=$4000 per student. Furthermore I think you will find few students who think that FinAid is increasing at a rate equal to the increase in cost.
I reread my post after I had posted it and realized it may sound a bit rude. Please do not read it in that light, I simply wish some accountability for the increasingly large amounts of money that this school is asking in order to receive an education.
As usual in bloggs there are lots of incorrect facts in some of these comments. This is why real journalism will never go away. Any claim can be made on a blogg with no evidence at all nor even the intent to be factual. That is why the bloggosphere is largely ignored today.
Tuition and room and board have not gone up $10,000 in 4 years not even half that amount I dont think. Compared to other Christian schools, PBA has not increased tuition as much as most. Regent is now $850 per hour. 95% of all students get financial aid which has increased over the years at all schools like PBA and many family members of faculty and staff pay low tuition. Utilties, food, storm insurance, health insurance for faculty and staff have gone up more than 2 times faster that the cost of living. Salaries for faculty are now in the top quartile of 103 CCCU schools due to increases greater than cost of living the past 6 years. True a few really good faculty left but many with as good or better degrees and publications replaced most. And some not so hot faculty left as well which is not all bad. No self respecting university should allow poor teaching. Some did leave because of the cost of living in FL. Lower teaching loads naturally adds to the cost of tuition as does the 15 to 1 student to faculty ratio. Southeastern U is cheaper as is Liberty but do you really want a 31 to 1 student to faculty ratio? That is the same as U of FL and it takes 5.8 years to get a BA compared to 4 years at PBA. How much does it cost to be out of the work force or grad school for 2 more years?
I would think that administrators with integrity would not spend money for uneeded expenses since it is really the students' money they are wasting. I dont think budgets are cut if budgets go unused but if it is excess money why would anyone expect to get the same amount the next year? Where is the institutional ethos of integrity in this kind of spending? At FAU they are cutting faculty and staff and freesing all hiring and not raises. Not much fun!
Where have all the $$$ gone - according to a post card I got from PBA, they are a non-profit organization, therefore have to disclose their accounting. Where you can go to get that, I don't know.
As for the comment about "real journalism" When the beacon become "real journalism" let us know. For right now it is nothing more than propaganda for the administration and the board of directors. God forbid they come out of their ivory towers and see that PBA is screwed up from the inside out. Instead they will just stare out the windows of their towers between articles of the beacon and think that everything is a bowl of cherries.
Dear Anonymous, please take the time to give yourself a name so that we can identify you from all the other anonymous posts. I recognize that I did throw out a lot of numbers without backing up my facts. First of all I (nor I believe anyone else) claimed that tuition had gone up $10k in four years, the number I used was $8,000 and while it was a rough figure I have decided to more clearly back it up since apparently "as usual in bloggs there are lots of incorrect facts in some of these comments." Here are the FACTS: log into mypba and pull up the 2005-2006 catalog (the 2004-2005 is unavailable online). Go to page 26. Add Tuition ($17,350)+ Housing (3,436)+Meal Plan (2,811)+ access fee (110)+insurance (460)=$24,167. Now go to http://www.pba.edu/admissions/tuition-fees/
and you will see the new tuition figure (21,250)+ (click fee schedule) and add housing (4,190) and meal plan (3,420)+ access fee (150)+ insurance (960)+ cable fee(25)=29,995 Both of these figure exclude sales tax on meal plans. So to compare apples to apples you can take the 2006 spring semester and compare to the 2009 spring semester. That is a three year gap and that would be an approx $6,000 dollar increase over 3 years....Yeah that adds up to about a $2,000/per year increase so when I say there has been an $8,000 increase over the past 4 years I don't think I am exaggerating.
Note: The cable fee was new and so was added in the 2009 figure. Also note that sales tax for meal plans would be higher in 2009 due to the higher cost of meal plans.
get it $$$
I am not surprised that after I show how the numbers actually add up I get no response. Is there no one to explain why the numbers are so high??? I don't mind intelligently discussing the issues but if you give me half baked excuses you can't expect me to just accept them.... after all I came to get an education and part of an education is the ability to think rationalize. $8,000 does not seem rational and I am asking for some kind of explanation. Honestly, telling me the new library costs more to maintain and that insurance went up isn't good enough until you throw up some numbers so that we can all look them over. I am guessing I will get no further response as the typical PBA response usually involves throwing out some lame response and then leaving you on hold until you leave....nothing changes at PBA
If you want a real response from PBA maybe you should try to communicate with them through a legitimate channel instead of a hostile one. As much as the Bacon tries to get conversations started, we all know it's satire and no one takes it seriously. If you really expect someone in authority to communicate through the comments section, you have a lot more to learn from your education.
If, however, you were willing to step out from behind your fake name I'm sure the administration would speak with you. Like someone else said, as a non-profit they have to make the books available to some degree. Now that I'm done go ahead and claim how much the administration hates students, how delusional I am, and how you'd be kicked out if it weren't for the anonymous button that the Bacon allows you.
First of all this is the only forum available for open discussion. Honestly, name one other for me? The VIP forums are pretty much the same answers we have always gotten. As can be noted from previous articles Student Gov tries its hardest but is under a lot of pressure to not step out of line. How exactly are you supposed to voice complaints when they are threatening to cut your budget??? Its not like one can just walk into Dr. Clark's office and ask where your tuition dollars are going.
Please do enlighten me as to what a "legitimate channel" looks like.
You could find someone at the Beacon to write a story on it. It seems that Clark wants to work through them more this year and the administration may be willing to give them some numbers. I don't know the Beacon's policies but they may be willing to let you help write the article.
Dr. Searle and Mike Loomis keep telling us that they are willing to meet with students. While they may not have all of the answers and they may not be free for drop ins, they might be able to help you understand where the money's going if you're willing to plan ahead and schedule for three weeks from now (or whatever it takes to meet with them).
Even though SGA is on a tight leash, they still have some relationship with the administration and should be able to get basic information from them about the budget. If asking where tuition dollars are going (instead of complaining about it) is seen as stepping out of line, then the administration really is as bad as everyone on here thinks it is.
That's three for you $$$. The Bacon might be the easiest place to voice your frustrations, but it's not the only place.
I thank you for taking the time to respond to my comments but lets take a closer look at your suggestions:
First there is the suggestion of writing a Beacon article. Let me remind you that the reason the Bacon exists was mostly due to the fact that the Beacon is not allowed to publish articles criticizing the school or the way it operates. The Bacon rose as a result of students wanting to poke fun at the situation and wanting to write about the things that really bothered them. I doubt an article criticizing the use of funds and the large increases in the cost of attending PBA will get approved.
Second I applaud your suggestion of talking to Mike Loomis and Dr. Searle. I respect both for what they do but I will be honest I feel that every time I have heard Dr. Searle speak about fixing the problems at PBA there is a lot of excuses and requests for understanding on the part of the student body but very little is every actually done. I may not give her as much credit for the positive changes as is due but it is a widely held perception that for all her talk there are not very many results. (Please do feel free to post some of her accomplishments I have nothing against her personally that has simply been my experience)
Third your suggestion that SGA should be contacted is not a bad one and I think I will contact them . (Yeah! open discussion does help produce better ideas). However before we open the champaign (or sparkling grape juice for the under 21 crowd) let me say that it does nothing for the credibility of SGA when the administration threatens to cut their funding because of the name on some award. Honestly how is there supposed to be open discussion when our ONE channel of communication is being threatened. It hurts their credibility and it hurts the administrations. How are we to know that they have not been pressured to spin the financial information to make the administration or certain departments look better or worse?
I agree with you completely $$$...it's so much easier to log in to the Bacon and discredit ideas then set up a meeting with someone who knows. It's so much easier to suppose something is true than to actually do the work of finding the truth. It's so much easier to assume the worst of people than to try and give them a chance. I couldn't agree with you more $$$. That's why I log in to the Bacon and banter with you, because it's so much easier to complain than to discover the truth. At least we see eye to eye on something.
I agree it is more difficult to find facts. For example it took me a good 20 min to find all the numbers and cite my sources proving that tuition had indeed been increasing at approximately $2,000 a year. I also think forums like this provide a cost efficient way for students to interact without having 3,000 students set up meetings with Administrators to find out where all the $$$ are going. After all the original complaint was about how INEFFICIENT the current system of budgeting is operating.
It is much easier for me to throw up some numbers and have others speculate as to why the increases came about (insurance, cost maintaining the library). Possibly another student (maybe in SG) has taken the time to meet with the admin and knows the answer. Rather than waste another hour of the admins time they can simply post the answer.
Furthermore this is the ONLY form of communication between students were you can call someone out on their facts and figures. Someone cried B#$%sh!t on my numbers and I had to show where the numbers came from.
Even if I did get the truth about the rise in tuition from SG or the Administration what would I do with it? Lets say they really opened up and told me the rise in costs was due to solely to a rise in salaries for the President and VP's (completely theoretical and not true as far as I know), well that is not something you can publish in a newspaper controlled by the Administration so I would end up coming to an online forum like this and posting my findings. At which time other students could pick over the facts and verify that they were indeed false (or true).
" On March 30th, 2008 at approximately 1045PM, PBA Security officers and West Palm Beach Police responded to an armed robbery of an individual call. The incident occurred at the east bound corner of Acacia and S. Olive Ave. The suspects are described as two African American males. The first suspect was an African American male 6'0 skinny with short black hair, brown eyes wearing a light colored shirt and jeans. The second male was described as dark skinned and wearing dark clothes. One suspect was carrying a firearm on him during the time of the robbery. Both suspects attacked the victim and took the victims personal property. The victim in this incident was not a PBA student.
PBA Security is committed to continuing our mission of providing a safe campus, and reminds all PBA personnel that security escorts are available for all staff. It is important during this time to remember safety tips.
* Avoid as much as possible walking alone at night, always try to walk in groups.
* If walking to your car, have your keys out and ready to open your car door.
* Make sure your valuables are secure on your person.
* Report all suspicious individuals to PBA security immediately.
If you have any information regarding this robbery you are urged to call (561) 803-**** or fill out a silent witness form online. Additionally, you can talk to PBA security in person. It is important to also note that these incidents are isolated and we still continue to have a very low crime rate on our campus. We here at PBA security are available to assist your twenty-four hours a day."
Has anyone else noticed that instead of being even remotely funny the Bacon has resorted to criticizing the administration as a means of entertainment? So much for the "Voice of the Students", say hello to "The Voice of the Five Kids at Smoker's Wall and Joshua Leonard".
Ya...Bacon lost its touch *does a salute* RIP
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