From: "Gross, Louis J" <lgross@tennessee.edu>
Date: Sunday, August 29, 2021 at 7:03 PM
To: dplowman <dplowman@utk.edu>, "Zomchick, John P" <zomchick@utk.edu>
Cc: "Cimino, Chris" <cimino@utk.edu>, "Gross, Louis J" <lgross@tennessee.edu>, "Spurgeon, Shawn Lamont" <sspurgeo@utk.edu>, "Schussler, Elisabeth Ellen" <eschussl@utk.edu>
Subject: Change over 5 years in System Administration Expenditures

Chancellor Plowman and Provost Zomchick,
     
     Thanks to both of you for meeting with the Faculty Senate Leadership Team on August 26 and for your participation in the Senate Retreat on August 27. During our meeting we briefly discussed the costs of an ERP and I mentioned that I had calculated the change over time in expenditures by the UT System as compared to UTK. You had expressed interest in these results and I promised to send them. They are summarized below and I am cc'ing Senior Vice Chancellor Cimino as he may have comments about the methodology. I am using the budgets as approved by the Board of Trustees with the realization that actual expenditures are likely different from these. 
 
   Several years ago I made a similar calculation on the costs of the System, which were discussed at a meeting of the UTK Faculty Senate Executive Council with then-President DiPietro. CFO David Miller was also present and said that our calculations were not appropriate because over the time period considered the UT System had taken over a variety of expenditures from UTK related to IT and HR. In the calculations here therefore, I start the 5-year comparison with the 2016-2017 year (passed by the Board in June 2016) which I believe is after all the transition of responsibilities to the UT System from UTK had occurred. A comparison is made to the 2021-2022 year (passed by the Board in June 2021). 
 
   The calculations use the E&G Unrestricted Current Funds Expenditures table of Natural Classification by Unit in the budgets passed by the Board and do not include Auxiliary Expenditures (such as Athletics). Expenditures for UTK changed from $604,878,046 to $730,175,920 or a 20.7% increase over 5 years. Expenditures for the UT System Administration changed from $46,913,423 to $61,739,907 or a 31.6% increase. 
 
  It is not clear what additional services the System components were provided from this disparity in expenditure growth. Over this same time period UTC Expenditures went up by 29.2%, UTM Expenditures went up by 9.5%, UTHSC Expenditures went up by 13.7%, UTIA Expenditures went up by 18.2%, and the Total UT System Expenditures went up by 18.7%. I am attaching a simple graph illustrating the changes. 
 
  I will pass on this information to the University Faculty Council.
 
Stay well,
      Lou