A message from James W.E. Rush, Vice-President, Academic and Provost and Jacinda Reitsma, Vice-President, Administration and Finance
In November’s Budget Town Hall and in our last update to the community, we shared an update with you on how we are dealing with our current and projected operating budget deficits. We want to keep you in the loop with this work as it unfolds because we know there is a lot of uncertainty around the campus about what could happen.
We’re very grateful for the suggestions and input you have sent to budget@uwaterloo.ca. We have more than 150 suggestions that we have shared with leaders to consider, and we encourage you to keep that feedback coming in the weeks ahead.
Tightening our belts for the rest of this fiscal year
As we shared at the town hall, much work has already been done to constrain spending and reduce budgets. Though we know it is difficult for many units, our hiring freeze is helping us to limit our expenditures on the largest part of our budget, our salary costs. Teams across the University are already working with our workforce planning team to figure out how we can work differently, and what we can stop doing, to manage these gaps.
We also need to make sure we do everything we can to limit our spending for the remainder of the year. That’s why we are introducing greater review prior to proceeding on major purchases, international travel, and procurements of goods and services. Leaders, managers and finance officers will hear more about these extra levels of scrutiny.
It’s essential that all of us do as much as we can to ensure that we spend only what is essential for the remainder of this fiscal year; anything we save now will help us in future years.
Planning for next fiscal year and further budget reductions
With fewer international students enrolling because of federal restrictions, a freeze on domestic tuition, restricted provincial government funding, and inflationary pressures – there is no easy way out of our structural operating budget deficit.
Balancing the books with across-the-board budget cuts is not the most effective or strategic way to achieve savings. That’s why VPs and Deans are working together now to look a range of options to reduce our salary and non-salary budgets for the fiscal year 2025-2026, which starts in May. Leaders are working with their teams to assess the impact of various options on our ability to deliver our core mission. In simple terms, for many units the reality is that leaders are working out how we can be more strategic and selective about what we do. Throughout this work we will continue to rely on our Waterloo at 100 vision and our values to guide our decisions to ensure we stay true to our mission.
Leadership meetings in the New Year will consider a range of scenarios based on that input from VPs and Deans. When these meetings are complete, and when we have concluded our required consultations with governance committees, we will be able to share more about our firm plans for the next fiscal year.
We know that in uncertain times like this, rumours will circulate. We want to assure you that we are taking a thoughtful, collaborative approach to the best solutions for our structural deficit.
Making progress on functional reviews
Our work to make long-term changes for efficiency and effectiveness includes reviews of several functions at Waterloo – communications and marketing, IT and finance. To help us with these reviews, we have partnered with Nous Group, an international consultancy firm that has worked with top institutions around the world and in Canada.
Nous’ experience, knowledge and expertise will help us develop evidence-based recommendations to make changes benchmarked against other similar institutions. Our kick-off work with Nous is getting underway before the Winter break and we expect to be able to share more details about the reviews in the New Year.
As we look ahead to this initial work on the functional reviews, we are keeping in mind that we will need to turn our attention, soon, to the way we organize and deliver our academic programs and student services. Three quarters of our operating budget is spent on these core activities, so it stands to reason that we must make sure that we are considering how we deliver these core activities.
This is hard work that takes a toll on all of us. As the calendar year draws to an end, we want to reiterate our commitment to engaging with you throughout this process. To help keep you up to date, we will launch a new website in the New Year where we hope to share background on our financial situation, details on the measures we are taking and resources you can refer to. Until that site is up and running, we have shared some FAQs online.
If you have any questions or concerns, you can email budget@uwaterloo.ca. We also encourage you to talk to your supervisor, manager or leader who will do their best to listen to you and, where possible, answer your questions.
We recognize that the content of this email may be unsettling for some. If you are affected by this message, we have support available and encourage folks to use these services. Supports are available from the Employee and Family Assistance Program (for employees), Counselling Services (for students) and 211Ontario (for people with no affiliation to the University).