Unit Budget, with provisions for Assessment, Technology, and Professional Development
Operations and projects in the School of Leadership and Education Sciences (SOLES) are currently funded by five sources: The general operating budget, endowment funds, grants, gifts, and support from other campus units. The general operating funds covers most of the assessment expenditures as well as a large portion of the professional development for SOLES. Endowments, grants, gifts and support from other areas also help to support assessment and professional development. Technology is budgeted for and administered centrally through our Information Technology Services department.
- SOLES General Operating Budget: The school is allotted an annual operating budget from the university general funds for core programs and a revenue based budget for SOLES special programs (reduced tuition programs), for a total current amount of $8.9 million. This budget contains all day-to-day operating costs, including assessment and professional development costs. Click here for breakdown of the budget. This is supplemented with various other funding sources as listed below. The dean of the school and a faculty representative sit on, and are voting members of the university budget committee. The budget and operations manager also attends as a staff member. The university budget committee generally meets three times per year to discuss budgetary policies and implications.
- Endowment Funds: USD policy for endowments stipulates that each year the receiving department is awarded a spending allowance (currently set at 4% of the trailing 3-years average of the endowment’s fair market value). SOLES total current endowment is just over $4.9 million with a spending allowance of roughly $191,000. Endowment purposes range from operational to scholarships to endowed program chair salaries to professional development. Click here for a list of SOLES endowments.
- Governmental, Foundation and Industry Grants: Grants are instrumental to SOLES for promoting research and scholarly activities. Current open grants total just under $3.6 million. Click here for a list of current grants.
- Giving is also instrumental to SOLES in order to provide additional funding for research, student scholarships, operational funds, and Center and Institute operations. Currently, SOLES has $500,000 in available funds with pending pledges on the books.
Other Departmental budget allocations to SOLES
Information Technology Services:
- Desktop Support Technician. This position is budgeted from the technology services budget but is appointed to solely serve as the SOLES technician.
- Computer leasing program – SOLES does not need to budget for individual desktop computers, computers for the classroom nor for the computer labs. The university operates a replacement program designed to ensure that faculty, staff, and students have access to desktop workstations that support current applications in their work and study.
- Software Site Licenses: The university purchases site licenses for various software programs used for academic and research purchases as well as administrative purposes. For example, SPSS is installed in all of the computers in the labs and on computers of those faculty teaching courses in which the software is utilized
Library Services:
- SOLES designated librarian – The SOLES appointed position assists SOLES faculty and students with new acquisitions (provided by library funds) and individual research assistance.
Provost’s Office Support:
- The University offers a wide variety of funding for faculty development. Funding covers national and international conference travel, program development, conference attendance, border initiative grant funding, faculty- student interaction funding, student research funding, etc. Many faculty (and administrators) in SOLES are the beneficiaries of these grants. For a full listing, please visit: http://www.sandiego.edu/provost/resources/funding.php