2008 Woodie Awards
CFO knows budget woes from all sides
Mrizek moves toward his agenda to make a more sufficient budget for the district
By Charles Cima
Last update: 1/4/08 at 7:22 PM CST
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Chief financial officer David Mrizek wanted to get the budget process in the hands of the deans at the division level.
"I have been working toward pushing allocation decisions closer to where the money needs to be spent," Mrizek said.
After having spent 15 years as the chair of what is now the theater and speech communication department, Mrizek knew what it was like to be on that side of the process.
"I've been on the other side; I know the challenges," Mrizek said.
With this change, he hopes to fix some of the budget problems he faced as a department chair.
"I want to make it as transparent as possible," he said.
Mrizek started this process with the 2001 budget.
"When I was a department chair, I had to submit my budget requests and wait," Mrizek said.
He waited to see what would be the budget allocation for the year.
"Just because I asked for a certain amount, it did not mean I got it," he said. "The amount we received to run the department was determined elsewhere."
The department chairs usually spent money until it ran out, Mrizek said.
"I wanted to make it a participatory thing," he said. "I wanted to get people involved in the budget process."
He described the two principles and two givens methodology he uses when starting budget workshops.
The two principles are you need to have budget development down to the unit level and you can't plan to spent more than you have, Mrizek said.
The two givens are no matter how much you have, it's not enough, and it's not easy to do this. It requires work and planning, he said.
"Plan the plan, work the plan," Mrizek said. "For good budget management, you have to push it down to the unit level."
Budget allocations should be made based on planning that address the missions of the units, divisions and college, Mrizek said.
This college has the largest operating budget of all district colleges, he said.
For the 2005-06 fiscal year, that total is $64,388,302.
He said the majority of the budget is built on projections, which include tuition, fees and contact hour reimbursement that comes from the state.
The contact hour reimbursement formula is based on how many hours a student is in contact with an instructor each week.
For example, if a student takes a three-hour class, that equals three contact hours per week, he said.
"Each class fits into a category, and a formula is applied," Mrizek said.
With tuition and fees, the district has to project how much revenue the college will make, he said.
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