The Waterloo Budget will now be based upon resource allocation and was developed using a set of principles and guidelines to better inform strategic decisions at all levels across the institution.
It follows a very basic principle that revenue earned by a Faculty belongs to that Faculty. Part of that income is returned to create a university fund which is used to support university-wide strategic initiatives and plans; and part in the form of allocated charges equal to each Faculty’s fair share of administrative and facilities costs. These costs are allocated using drivers (e.g. enrolment, occupied space, number of employees) that are most relevant to the academic support unit (Registrar, Library, Finance, etc.)
This approach is used by many higher education institutions (e.g. Queens, McMaster, Toronto, Simon Fraser) as a way of introducing financial sustainability along with transparency and accountability. It also allows Faculties to respond to changing financial conditions according to their own values and priorities - to enable more informed and localized decision making.
The Provost and the Steering Committee have been working on the development of a model since March 2013. The model will first be used in the 2017-2018 Fiscal year.
The remainder of this site is devoted to providing a high-level description of the operation of the model used at Waterloo.