Update on network funding
As noted in an earlier blog entry, the campus is moving towards an FTE-based model for network funding. Thursday I participated in the latest meeting of the advisory committee, and we got a lot more detail about the plan.
The biggest news is that implementation has been delayed until January 2010. The committee and the Cabinet are in agreement that the plan is not ready for implementation this coming July 1; there are too many open questions and logistical problems. So for at least the first six months of the fiscal year, network charges will be the same as they currently are.
Also big news for certain L&S departments is that completion of campus infrastructure projects, including ubiquitous AirBears, is included in the funding model. That means that some of the buildings with the worst networking, such as Tolman, Wheeler, and Kroeber, will receive network upgrades as part of the adoption of the new model. Timelines are unclear, and there will probably still be a required departmental contribution for new horizontal cables, but this is definitely good news for our most underserved departments.
Undergraduate students are now included in the funding model at a 0.15 FSE rate. The proposal is to pay for students via a student technology fee; the campus is working with UCOP (and probably going to the Regents) to implement such a fee on the January 2010 timeframe. [Not knowing anything about the politics involved, I'd have to say that timeframe looks unrealistic to me, but we'll see.]
The inclusion of students in the model has brought the cost per FSE down below $40/month/FSE, from original projections of $45/month. The figure we are currently seeing is $38.08/month; that is subject to change due to negotiations over FSE counts, but it should remain below $40.
The committee’s strong preference is to use the existing $1.3M in funding allocation to pay the monthly fees for academic titles and GSIs. It appears that $1.3M is roughly equivalent to the amount needed to cover those groups, and it looks to me like that’s the direction the campus is going to take.
The overall impact to L&S will be significant in any case. According to draft figures shared with us, L&S departments in total are currently spending approximately $14K/month for network charges; under the new model (with no funding allocations included), L&S costs rise to $104K/month–an increase of $90K/month, $1.08M/year. If L&S garners half of the $1.3M funding allocation (a reasonable guess based on faculty FTE counts), that still leaves us with additional costs of nearly $500K/year.
They gave us projected cost breakdowns by department; here are some examples of monthly costs from a large and a small department in each division (again, this is before any funding is allocated):
- MCB: Current $969, projected $18,084, increase $17,115/month
- IB: Current $1,230, projected $7,501, increase $6,271/month
- Physics: Current $1,486, projected $7,947, increase $6,461/month
- Statistics: Current $192, projected $1,656, increase $1,447/month
- History: Current $410, projected $4,128, increase $3,718/month
- Geography: Current $96, projected $912, increase $816/month
- English: Current $297, projected $3,577, increase $3,280/month
- Scandinavian: Current $56, projected $443, increase $387/month
- UGIS: Current $306, projected $2,495, increase $2,189/month
- L&S Advising: Current $198, projected $1,644, increase $1,447/month
It’s obvious that impacts at these levels would be devestating to departments. Funding allocation should bring the direct costs down quite a bit; my guess is that the proposal would cut 50-75% off the above numbers for most academic departments, depending on the makeup of departmental FTE. Departments whose FTE are mostly in academic titles and GSIs would benefit the most from the proposed funding allocations; departments with many administrative staff and GSR positions would benefit less. Fully administrative departments (such as mine) will likely be paying the full costs. Even with funding allocations, many departments will struggle to find funding to pay these charges.
Thursday’s meeting is the first time the committee discussed the logistics of implementing this model. I brought up the example of MCB, our largest department. MCB has 475 FSE under the model, accounting for possibly 1000 people; the department would probably want to allocate network charges to 100 or more chart strings. Imagine a scenario where the department manager gets a list of 800 people and has to manually specify the chart string (or multiple chart strings) for each one of them; it sounds ugly. One possibility for simplifying the logistics would be to implement a GAEL-style payroll charge; the network would be charged to the same chart string as the individual’s payroll. For some departments this would work well; for others it would still be a major headache. We’re very early in the process of deciding how the model will be implemented; please let me know any comments you have, and I will continue to keep you informed.
