UFB Historical Data

In 2020, for the first time, UFB gained access to all historical records of revenues and costs going back to the 2008-2009 academic year. In 2019, UFB leadership requested historical data from SAO in order to better understand our running surplus. In receiving three years of data, UFB learned about the magnitude of our running surplus (explained in the “UFB Surplus Overview” below). In 2020, SAO was able to find physical records of UFB data going back to 2008-2009 and digitized them for us. With all of this new data, UFB can now more accurately project fluctuations in revenues and costs and plan better for the future.

In line with UFB’s recent push toward total transparency, we are publishing this data for the student body to see. We have done our best to format the data in an easily readable and digestible way. A good place to start would be to scroll down to rows 32 - 54 and look at our analysis of the data, which includes total revenue numbers, cost numbers, and increases to the running surplus for each year.

Click here to view the data (only accessible to those with a Brown email address).

We hope that the publication of this data will show UFB’s commitment to total transparency, create better public accountability, and contribute to the dialogue on campus about how UFB can best support the student body. Stay safe!

Respectfully,

Julian De Georgia, UFB Chair 2019-20

Fatou Kabba, UFB Vice Chair 2019-20

(Published April 8th, 2020)

UFB Surplus Overview

The purpose of this statement is to explain how the Undergraduate Finance Board (UFB) operates, why we have a higher-than-usual surplus, and what this means for UFB’s spending moving forward. The most important takeaways of this statement are: 1) UFB requires a large surplus to account for unpredictable fluctuations each year, 2) UFB’s surplus has increased rapidly in recent years, 3) as a result, UFB will have the capacity to consider larger requests, and 4) no group was denied funds that they would have otherwise received, had UFB been aware of the surplus. Details explaining each of these takeaways are included below.

Overview of how UFB operates

In order to understand UFB’s current surplus, it’s important to first understand the basics of how UFB operates. Broadly, UFB is a branch of student government responsible for allocating funds to Brown student groups.

Where does UFB’s money come from?

Every undergraduate student at Brown pays a “Student Activities Fee,” which is added on top of tuition as part of the total cost of attendance at Brown. This Fee currently amounts to $286 and generates approximately $1.9M in revenue per year for UFB, which is the bulk of our spending capacity. In addition to the Student Activities Fee revenue, UFB also receives approximately $300k per year from “returns.” Returns are made up of (1) funds that were allocated but not spent the previous year by student groups (about $200k on average), and (2) revenue surpluses from large events like Spring Weekend and Gala, explained further below (about $100k on average). In total, therefore, UFB generates approximately $2.2M in revenue per year that it can allocate to Brown’s student groups. Each year, UFB aims to spend as much as we gain in revenue. That means that we aim to allocate approximately $2.2M to the groups on campus. Additionally, we target a total “forward balance” of approximately $300k, which is essentially a buffer - the amount of money that we have leftover from all previous years.

Why does UFB need a $300k buffer?

The reason that UFB needs a buffer of several hundred thousand dollars is that there are many factors outside of UFB’s control that can result in substantial fluctuations in UFB’s funds. In order to ensure that UFB doesn’t run out of money in any given year, it’s critical that we maintain this buffer.

One factor out of UFB’s control that contributes to budget fluctuations is returns from unspent funds. These returns have fluctuated significantly in previous years, from as low as $197k to as high as $311k. When UFB allocates funds, we guarantee that money to the groups, so theoretically, UFB could receive $0 back in returns from unspent funds in a particular year. Given that UFB’s spending ($1.95M - $2.1M) exceeds the guaranteed revenue we receive from the Student Activities Fee ($1.8M - $1.9M) and therefore depends on the receipt some of these returns, our budget must maintain a buffer in order to accommodate for these fluctuations and ensure that we don’t run out of money in any given year.

The other factor that contributes to UFB’s need for a $300k surplus is the fluctuations in returns from Spring Weekend and Gala. Spring Weekend ticket prices are set such that revenues fully cover the production costs of staging and security, assuming that the event takes place indoors. UFB provides $300k per year to pay for acts, so ticket revenues are only used to pay for production costs. If Spring Weekend is outside, however, Brown Concert Agency is able to sell an additional 2,500 tickets per day without significantly increasing production costs, generating a surplus of $60k - $70k that UFB receives. Gala operates similarly, where UFB funds most of the event, but requires CCB to generate ticket revenue in order to pay back $30k - $40k of the cost of the event each year (about half of the cost). As a result, UFB’s extra spending capacity from these returns can fluctuate between $30k and $110k each year, depending on the weather and the ticket revenue from Gala.

In summary, because factors out of UFB’s control can result in total budget fluctuations of several hundred thousand dollars, it’s important for UFB to maintain an annual surplus of approximately $300k. This ensures that we don’t run out of funds in any particular year and avoid a situation where we cannot fund groups.

Explanation for UFB’s higher-than-usual surplus

UFB’s surplus was $1.04M at the start of the 2019-2020 school year, which is substantially higher than the $300k that we typically target. There are two reasons for this.

1. Until recently, UFB didn’t know that the surplus was accumulating

The primary reason for this is that BearSync (the online platform that UFB uses to manage our fund) [Update 08/2022: since 2020-2021, budgeting processes have been running through a Google Drive based system] does not allow UFB to easily view our budget in the big picture. The issue was that, although UFB can see the dollar amount currently in the fund, because half of the revenue from the Student Activities Fee was deposited into the fund each semester and allocations were withdrawn throughout the year, there was no easy way to see the total amount of money available for the year. As a result, over the last few years, UFB leadership made budget projections based solely on expected revenues and costs of a given year, without considering the accumulating surplus. The second reason that UFB didn’t know that the surplus was accumulating is that incoming UFB leadership received too little training to be able to fully understand BearSync.

Recognizing the problem, the 2018-2019 UFB leadership requested data on the surplus from the Student Activities Office (SAO). Members of the SAO (the branch of Brown University that helps oversee student groups and manages reimbursements for UFB) then manually calculated the surplus trend and provided the data that is being published along with this statement.

2. UFB’s surplus increased rapidly over the past five years

Over the last few years, despite the fact that UFB increased support for student groups and raised our spending approximately 5% per year, positive fluctuations in UFB’s revenues resulted in the surplus increasing by $675k over the past five years. At the end of the 2013-2014 academic year, UFB’s surplus (or buffer) was $363k. In 2014-2015 (Fiscal Year 15), we had expenses of $1.77M and total revenues of $1.80M (including $247k in returns), resulting in a $28k increase in the buffer. In 2015-2016 (Fiscal Year 16), we had expenses of $1.75M and total revenues of $1.91M (including $277 in returns), resulting in a $160k increase in the buffer. In 2016-2017 (Fiscal Year 17), we had expenses of $1.92M and total revenues of $2.14M (including $358k in returns), resulting in a $221k increase in the buffer. In 2017-2018 (Fiscal Year 18), we had expenses of $1.93M and total revenues of $2.11M (including $306k in returns), resulting in a $180k increase in our buffer. Finally, in 2018-2019 (Fiscal Year 19), we had expenses of $2.11M and total revenues of $2.20M (including $310k in returns), increasing our buffer another $83k.

To summarize, over the past five years, our running surplus or buffer increased from $383k at the end of 2013-2014 to $1.04M at the end of 2018-2019. Stepping back from the details, broadly, UFB has incurred consistently higher revenues than costs over the past few years. As a result, our surplus has rapidly climbed.

What are we doing to prevent this from happening in the future?

UFB acknowledges that, regardless of the challenges that BearSync may have posed in easily accessing the information, we should have taken the necessary steps to get the data. Understanding the overall trends of the fund should have been considered a core responsibility of the UFB leadership and we apologize for our failure to do so. Upon receiving the data in the 2018-2019 school year, the UFB leadership released an initial report in the fall of 2018 outlining our funding broadly. This was followed in the fall of 2019 with a larger data release and an Open Forum to discuss the data and address questions posed by the student body.

To prevent this situation from arising again in the future, UFB is implementing a number of new preventative measures. First, we have established a new advisor who will help oversee UFB and assist with financial projections and data analysis. Katherine Tameo, the Associate Vice President for Campus Life and Director of Finance and Administration, is UFB’s new advisor and will help ensure that UFB has the support needed to effectively plan long-term UFB spending. Second, we have created mandatory training for new UFB leadership with SAO administrators in order to ensure that UFB leadership fully understands the big-picture overview of the fund. Third, as a board, we are committing to publishing this data each year, which we hope will create greater public accountability for UFB.

Additionally, the Student Activities Office (SAO), in conjunction with the Undergraduate Council of Students (UCS) and UFB, will be switching from BearSync to a new platform called “Presence” starting in the 2020-2021 school year. It is our hope that this new platform will make it easier for UFB to oversee the fund in the future. [Update 08/2022: since 2020-2021, budgeting processes have been running through a Google Drive based system].

What does the surplus mean for UFB spending moving forward?

1. UFB will not request an increase in the Student Activities Fee for the next few years

Because UFB’s money comes directly from the Student Activities Fee, we have the ability to request changes to that Fee (which correspond to increases in the total cost of attendance at Brown). One of our primary goals as an organization is to ensure that we allocate our resources effectively, so as to avoid having to request an increase in the Student Activities Fee. As context, between 2008 and 2019, UFB requested and received Student Activities Fee increases eight out of eleven years. However, because of the present surplus, UFB has not requested an increase for the past two years and is unlikely to request a Fee increase in the next few years.

The formal procedure to request an increase in the Student Activities Fee is that UFB creates a proposal for an increase and must pass it with a two-thirds majority of the board. Once passed, this proposal must be presented to the Undergraduate Council of Students (UCS), which must also pass it. Then, the proposal is submitted to the Vice President of Campus Life, who presents it to the University Resource Committee, the governing body of the University that has the authority to change the Student Activities Fee. If the University Resources Committee approves an increase, the change will go into effect the following academic year.

2. UFB will have the capacity to consider large requests

Without a larger-than-needed surplus, substantial increases in UFB spending would have to be accompanied by either 1) reductions in allocations to some groups or 2) an increase in the Student Activities Fee. However, because of our current financial situation, UFB has the capacity to consider decisions that will increase our overall spending without having to face either of those consequences in the immediate future. One recent example of this in action is UFB’s decision to increase baseline, or flexible spending, for cultural and religious groups, which will result in $26,400 in additional costs per year.

With this in mind, it may be tempting for UFB to make a series of large decisions that increase spending. However, it’s important to maintain a long-term view of these funds and consider the possibilities of future increases to the Fee. Our costs will inevitably increase over time due to inflation, new groups becoming Category 3, and existing groups expanding their current operations. The longer that we can make this money last, the longer it will be before we have to request another increase of the Student Activities Fee.

That being said, UFB is absolutely open to discussing ways to better support the student body, given the flexibility of our current financial situation.

What does this NOT mean?

This does NOT mean that previously denied budgets would have been approved if UFB had been aware of this surplus.

If your group or a group you know of was denied funding from UFB, it was NOT because UFB was unaware of our surplus. Every budget denied is done so because it was not in line with one of our publicly available policies and each decision is explained to the group in a comment written on the budget that accompanies the decision. Requests that fall within policy are typically approved, and requests that go against those policies are often denied. Other factors that are considered in making funding decisions include: 1) what precedent a given decision would set for other groups, 2) the long-term financial impact that such a precedent might have on the fund, and 3) year-over-year growth of spending of a given group.

Had UFB been aware of this surplus earlier on, it would not have affected any of our funding decisions. This is because the total amount of money remaining in UFB’s funds is generally not taken into consideration when deciding budgets. Budget decisions are always made according to policy, not the magnitude of UFB’s fund. Because UFB aims to maintain a buffer of about $300k, we rarely anticipate running out of money in a given year. Instead, if we notice a trend of increased costs in an area over time, we either make a decision to request an increase in the Student Activities Fee in order to sustain that increase in spending, or change a policy in order to curtail spending. An example of a decision to curtail spending was when UFB eliminated its policy to pay for group retreats, as the cost of funding them was increasing at an unsustainable rate.

The only time that UFB does consider our total remaining funds in making a budget decision is when we receive highly unusual requests that could result in substantial changes in UFB’s spending in the long run. One recent example of such a request was a request for an increase in support for CCB’s Senior Week in order to reduce ticket prices, which amounted to tens of thousands of dollars each year (hundreds of thousands of dollars over the next few years). For that request, UFB did extensive modeling to assess the long-term impact of the increase in spending to our funds and potential increases to the Student Activities Fee. Again, that was a very unusual circumstance. For almost every other budget, this type of analysis and projection would not be productive and is therefore not done.

In summary, there are no circumstances in which a group was denied a request that would have been approved, had UFB been aware of the additional funds available.

How has COVID-19 affected UFB?

Due to the University’s decision to move all classes online and send students home, many student groups were forced to cancel their planned events. As a result, UFB anticipates that a large amount of the money already allocated to student groups will not be spent and therefore returned to UFB. Because many student groups are still active this semester and finding ways to coordinate events online, UFB does not yet know how much our surplus will increase as a result of the COVID-19 global pandemic. Roughly, we anticipate receiving at least $400,000 and at most $765,000. UFB is in the process of deliberating on the most equitable place for these funds.

Conclusion

It is our hope that total transparency will create better public accountability for UFB and ensure that the board receives feedback from the student body about how to improve. Rather than making decisions on our own, we would like to have a conversation and leverage the input of students to ensure that we make the best decisions possible. To be a part of the conversation, there are a number of steps you can take. First, you can utilize UFB’s anonymous feedback form on our website. Second, you can email ufb@brown.edu with questions or concerns. Alternatively, if you would like to speak with someone face-to-face, you can visit us during our office hours 3-5pm on Mondays in the Blue Room or reach out to a UFB representative for a private in-person meeting. Thank you again for taking the time to read this and we look forward to hearing from you soon.