At the June 7 meeting of the Longwood University Board of Visitors, the Board approved changes to the ‘Use and Investment of Local Funds’ – the non-state allocated monies which are often donated to the university. The new policy passed by the Board of Visitors represents a significant change in Longwood University’s budgeting approach, as the local funds were previously at the discretion of academic departments and offices. As a result of the new policy, university officials have greater control over the use of these funds, resulting in concern from faculty members.
In an August 1 interview with The Rotunda, Longwood's Vice President of Administration and Finance Matt McGregor – with University Spokesperson and Deputy to the President Matt McWilliams also present – explained that the policy change was driven by a need for greater “harmony” in how funds are used. The aim of the new policy is to align the use of these local funds more closely with the state-allocated funds that Longwood University receives.
Local funds are separate from the Educational and General (E&G) funds and Auxiliary funds, which come from state-allocated money, tuition, and student fees. According to the online meeting materials for the June 7 Board of Visitors meeting, the new policy defines local funds in part as non-state monies that “include gifts to the university.”
Academic departments and other university offices receive this fundraising revenue from private donors, promoting gifts through campus-wide events such as Love Your Longwood Day. In the past, that money has been used by departments and offices for a variety of reasons, including funding projects and buying equipment.
According to McGregor, the new policy will look to expand what departments use these local funds for – adding in parameters regarding the use of them, as well as operationalizing them.
Also according to McGregor, local funds were moved in June as a result of the policy, having been used to address administrative needs and overhead expenses within departments those monies have been donated to. When asked to detail how much money had been moved to address administrative needs, neither McGregor nor McWilliams would provide a figure, though McWilliams referred to the amount as a “percentage of the overall thing” and said it was “hard to put an exact figure on it until we do our year-end compilations.”
Dr. Lee Bidwell, who was elected Chair of the Faculty Senate in April, expressed concerns from faculty members regarding the funds and the policy change. In an interview with The Rotunda on August 9, Bidwell said, “What I'm hearing [from faculty members] is grave concern about the lack of communication.” According to Bidwell, there have been two official communications to faculty related to the policy change to her knowledge, both after the policy was changed and the monies were moved.
The first was an email from Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Larissa Smith to department chairs, “right after it was discovered that this shift had been made in the funds,” said Bidwell. The second was an email from University President W. Taylor Reveley IV on August 5, who shared greater details of the policy shift. Bidwell is not a department chair, so she only received the email from Reveley sent to all faculty members.
Bidwell also expressed concern that budget managers, often chairs of respective departments, were given limited information about the change in policy and movement of funds. She said, “There's real concern about the fact that budget managers didn't have a voice in how much money was taken out, or even which funds were touched.”
McGregor said he was not specifically aware of what information was provided to faculty, saying, “Things are moving fast in June at the close and so I don't know what kind of information went down.”
According to McGregor, the policy change originated from Reveley. “[Reveley] came to me and he said, ‘I want to have our local money make a difference annually,’” McGregor said. He also said, “Up until we moved in this direction, the local [funds] wasn't really a part of our mission. It really wasn't being utilized to go towards creating successes on campus,” adding, “This policy change’s goal is trying to really get all of those different funding sources working together.”
McWilliams clarified McGregor’s statement, adding, “Up until now those local funds have certainly made an impact on campus. So it's not like they haven’t been deployed or done really good work, it's just that the way that they were handled was not the most effective way.”
Bidwell contested this when asked about their sentiments, “I think it is part of the concern that faculty have, is that in particular… both the communication from the Provost and the communication from the President suggested that folks who were managing budgets were not deploying these funds quickly enough or effectively enough. And I think those budget managers would vehemently disagree and say that they had significant plans for that money.”
McGregor said in the “very long past,” local funds “didn't really have a purpose, didn't really have a mission. Which really you could argue isn't what the donor's intent was.” He added, “When it’s program-endowed, you're getting money every year, the expectation is that money is either going towards a project or it's going to be used in that year.”
Bidwell disagreed with the expectation that this money should be spent within the year it is donated. Bidwell, a full professor of sociology with 34 years of experience at Longwood, is a donor to the Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminal Justice Studies. “I had a specific project in mind, and I wanted that money to be used over as long as it could be. And every year the amount differs, because I'm supporting a student endeavor,” Bidwell said.
“There is no way in the world that money could have been spent in one year, because we don't have enough students that would be in need of it, so donors do not necessarily expect their money to be spent right away,” she added.
Bidwell provided some more concerns she was hearing from faculty, including that the Board of Visitors did not publicly discuss the change prior to voting.
A review of the Board of Visitors minutes and meeting materials currently posted online finds that the only mention of the policy change is in the June 7 meeting materials as a part of the consent agenda, which according to a publicly available draft of the minutes, were approved at the beginning of the meeting with no discussion reported.
“I think the general tenor of the faculty is that they're worried about why this policy change was made, why the money was taken without any forewarning,” she said. “What does that mean about the financial health of the institution?”
Bidwell also added, “The money was taken at the end of June, and you can look at the date when the President's email came out (August 5). And so, why did it take that long to even address the campus? Those are just some questions and concerns that we have. Now, if all the money was put back, if this was something that, ‘We needed it for something. We’re going to put it all back.’ We’d like to know it. We’d like it to happen right away.”
Bidwell said the Faculty Senate will address the issue when it returns. According to the Senate’s website, the first faculty meeting is on August 23, with the Senate meeting on September 5.
The Rotunda staff is continuing to follow this story, and has a pending Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request related to the movement of funds, communications between personnel in the President’s Office and President’s Council and Board of Visitors related to the policy change, and a summary of local funds donated to the university during the most recent fiscal year.
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UPDATE (AUG. 13, 2024): Today at 5:23 p.m., The Rotunda staff received documents related to the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, and is currently in the process of reviewing the documents provided.
