UCA is currently on a spending hold primarily because of a decline in enrollment.
The freeze is for spending during the remainder of the school year.
“We have asked departments to hold spending as much as possible for the remainder of the fiscal year,” Vice President of Finance and Administration Diane Newton said.
“The enrollment decline is the driver for the spending hold,” Newton said.
Student tuition and fees account for almost half of UCA’s revenue, approximately 44 percent.
Newton said the fall 2016 headcount enrollment was 11,487 and the full-time equivalent was 9,695.
Full-time equivalency is the estimated amount of full-time students taking credit hours, which generates the expected amount of credited hours.
“This compares to fall 2015 enrollment of 11,754 and FTE of 9,959. The tuition increase built into the budget helped offset some of the loss in enrollment. However, there are expenses built in the budget based on at enrollment plus the revenue provided by the tuition increase. We are still obligated for the expenses added to the budget which would have been covered by the tuition increase,” Newton said.
The board of trustees made the decision to supplement Davis’ salary with the private funds, which was also approved prior to Davis’ arrival.
Newton said football coach Steve Campbell received a pay increase from private funds.
“The UCA Purple Circle is the of cial support organization for UCA Athletics, providing an avenue for alumni, businesses, family and friends to invest in UCA student-athletes,” Madsen said.
The Purple Circle’s private funds allowed UCA to give Campbell a $15,587 raise. allowing Campbell to get paid around $200,000 a year.
The members of the Purple Circle contribute $300,000 to be used by UCA’s 17 varsity sports teams. “These funds cover over-and-above expenditures and are critical to the success of the UCA Athletics Department,” Madsen said.
According to the UCA registrar’s office ce, on Jan. 30, approximately 9,600 undergraduate students are currently enrolled and 1,871 graduate students are enrolled.
That makes the total for both graduate and undergraduate students about 11,471.
She said UCA’s state appropriation did not change based upon the drop in enrollment in the current scal year. She said the current drop in enrollment would have impacted the existing state funding model in the scal year 2018-2019.
Associate Vice President for Communications, Public Relations and Marketing Christina Madsen said former President Tom Courtway’s state-funded salary was $247,248 and President Houston Davis’ state fund salary is $307,330. This was the maximum both could be paid out of state funds.
“The latter amount was budgeted for the new president before the opening for the position was ever advertised,” Madsen said.
Madsen said this increase was an effort to align closer with UCA’s peer institutions.
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