Except for one faculty (Psychology and Neurosciences) all faculties expect to spend more money than they will receive in 2022. Together, they will create a deficit of more than 4.2 million. For the service centres, the amount is almost 1.8 million. Small change compared to the total budget of more than half a billion. The UM’s reserves are more than enough to bridge the gap: at the end of 2021, there is still 135 million in the reserve funds.
The expected income – mainly derived from government funding and various research subsidies – is about 535 million. The largest part of the expected total spending (over 540 million) goes – as usual – to personnel costs (383 million, more than 70 per cent of the total expenses). The rest consists of things such as accommodation expenses (more than 50 million), IT (17 million for licences and infrastructure), and operational expenses (76 million), such as the costs of consultancy or external workers, but also office supplies costs, travel and overnight expenses, and copying costs.
Because of COVID-19, the latter expenses (for travelling and attending conferences) turned out to be lower than expected in 2020 and 2021. A stroke of luck. This is set off by the lower income from the UM guesthouse, which had empty rooms for a long time. UM Sports, which had to (partly) close its doors, also suffered due to COVID-19.
Remarkably, at all faculties academic staff numbers have increased faster than administrative and support staff numbers. This trend will continue in the coming years. A reason for concern, say the administrative and support staff section in the faculty council at the School of Business and Economics. “I can see investments in more academic staff and at the same time a lot of the administrative tasks – [such as the final grade administration, ed] – being transferred from academic staff to administrative and support staff, while the pressure of work is high among them as well,” said administrative and support staff council member Alexander Louwes in October during a discussion about his faculty’s budget.
The University Council also has a number of concerns. Work pressure has been an important issue on the agenda for years. Yet there is still no relief, states a letter from the academic staff section to the Executive Board. Why do we not see concrete measures to reduce work pressure in the budget? Also, which strategy is behind all expenses for digitalisation? In addition, the council wonders how the NPO funds (support from the National Education Programme to compensate for delays due to COVID-19) are being spent by the faculties.
Some of these questions had been discussed previously at a private University Council meeting. No information regarding those has been made public. The council wants to include the rest of the answers in an appendix to the budget. Vice President Nick Bos agreed to this during the latest University Council meeting. Having received this promise, the council approved the budget. As a supplement to their approval, the University Council will present advice for points needing special attention for the budget in the coming years.