from Dean Barbara I. Dewey

The University’s Operating Budget was approved by the Board of Trustees on July 22, 2016.  This budget includes an increase in state support of 2.5 percent or $5.6 million, for a total appropriation of $315.7 million. Penn State’s budget planning effort focused on minimizing the impact on Penn State’s students. This budget includes modest tuition rate increases as well as a modest salary increase program. Details regarding the salary increase program will be released in the coming weeks.

The student information technology fee is being phased out, so we did not receive any funding from this fee this year. The Libraries operating budget is flat for 2016-2017.

As requested in 2015-2016 from the Provost, we will continue to review travel requests. For all travel requests, we request details about the activity, role, and goal of the travel request. We have implemented the following guidelines for reviewing and approving travel requests:

• Presentations and/or leading part of the event, session, or workshop using professional funds, priority for untenured tenure-track faculty;
• Work / research to be conducted using professional funds or endowments;
• Penn State official representation and essential support for strategic directions  (no more than two representatives maximum);
• Travel for Arts and Humanities collection development purposes is funded through endowments; and
• Grant supported travel is approved by the terms of the grant.

We depend on each of you to provide excellent stewardship of tuition and taxpayer dollars. If you have any questions about any aspect of the budget, please contact me or Kimlyn Patishnock.