Bowdoin's deficit reduction process a model

Andy Evans looks to Bowdoin for guidelines

Oberlin routinely consults with other colleges on items such as budgeting. President Nancy Dye said she calls up other presidents all the time and Andy Evans, vice president for finance, also communicates with other institutions.

Recently, Evans sought advice from Kent Chabotar, the treasurer of Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine. Bowdoin is similar to Oberlin in that it is a small liberal arts college that recently had to deal with its own budget deficit.

Although Bowdoin has a similar budgeting style, Evans said the ideas for the focus groups in December and the student forums came from his own managing style.

Evans said he knew something had to be done concerning school-wide feelings about the budget after attending a routine administrative breakfast where everyone had something to say about the deficit.

Evans said he felt that though the reactions to the focus groups and the student forums weren't completely positive, most people were happy at the chance to be heard. He said the most important thing was letting everyone participate in the process.

Bowdoin's process is relevant because it is similar to what Oberlin is doing, except on a larger scale.

According to Chabotar, between 1991 and 1994, Bowdoin tried to prevent its $2 million to $4 million deficit from increasing. The college cut 50 staff and administrative positions out of its budget and then began a process of re-engineering its whole system to eliminate red tape and generally make everything more "user friendly."

Chabotar authored an article about Bowdoin's budget process and participative budgeting in general. The article, entitled, "Managing Participative Budgeting in Higher Education" gives examples from Bowdoin's budgeting process, as well as those of other colleges. In the article, Chabotar advocated the use of participatory budgeting over partial or no communication between administration, faculty, support staff and students.

Chabotar believes that a budget that everyone understands and everyone has had an opportunity to participate in will seem fairer to everyone, but that there will still be critics. To help everyone understand the budgeting process better, Chabotar held a series of finance workshops during which he talked about various colleges' financial crises for the first six weeks and about Bowdoin's budget the last week. Chabotar said 65 people showed up for the classes, among them staff, faculty and students. The group had many good suggestions for budgeting changes, Chabotar said, some of which were later implemented.

Learning to say no was also an important part of Bowdoin's slimming down, Chabotar said. "That's where people get into trouble. They say yes too often."

Bowdoin cut different types of smaller expenses, such as luncheons, sending flowers to people and free coffee and spring water. In light of the layoffs, these losses were not so tragic, said Chabotar, but there were still some repercussions, "Morale is still hurting. Very tight ship around here. Not a lot of extra money around."

Chabotar compared the budgeting process to being on a diet. "People thought it would be over in a couple of years," he said.

Bowdoin's deficit came partially because the trustees didn't get involved enough, according to Chabotar.

He also blamed a college growth spurt during the 1980s which moved Bowdoin into a league where many of the competitor schools had more money than Bowdoin did. Bowdoin added new programs and offices that it couldn't afford. Chabotar called these programs and offices "unaffordable good intentions."

Now Bowdoin has a balanced budget and is in the process of re-engineering its services to make them "more efficient." Course registration was the first to change and there are 20 more services slated for alterations in the next couple of years.