September 13-14, 17, 2021 | Online | See Schedule for Full Details
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Overview
The 2021 Planning and Budgeting Forum is your can’t-miss ticket to the latest
strategies in higher education resource management. This
information-packed online event will focus on innovative planning and budgeting
methods, how the process can affect institutional change, and much
more.
This year’s key topics include—
Achieving campus-wide budget intelligence
Continuous improvement
Capital planning
Financial modeling
Using data to inform decisions
Planning and BudgetingWebcastWorkshop
What You Will Learn
NACUBO’s professional development programs are designed to deliver the skills, concepts, and best practices for success to individuals in the business of higher education. The following course information is provided to help you determine the best learning experience to meet your needs
Discuss innovative planning and budgeting methods being practiced at colleges and universities
Identify approaches for using planning and budgeting as an agent for institutional change
Recognize strategies to address higher education resource management
Who Should Attend
Associate Vice Presidents of Finance, Administration, or Budget
Budget Directors
Budget Managers
Planning Officers
Prerequisites
No prerequisites and/or advance preparation required.
CPE Information
Estimated 13 CPE Credits in Finance
NACUBO is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE credit. Complaints regarding registered sponsors may be submitted to the National Registry of CPE Sponsors through its website www.nasbaregistry.org.
COVID-19 has stressed budgets and business models. To survive, institutions must invest in their future by equipping academic leaders to make strategic budgetary decisions and resource reallocations. Hear how academic unit budgets can be used for strategic alignment and cultural transformation. Strategies covered include incentive-based budgets, internal reallocation, seed funding, indirect cost recovery, and others.
Session Duration: 75 minutes; 12:00 - 1:15pm ET
1:30 PM
Demo Session: Anaplan Connected Planning and Budgeting, featuring University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Join this live demo session to learn how colleges and universities are leveraging the Anaplan cloud platform to
transform budgeting, planning, and analytics. This demo session will feature a customer case study, with UNLV joining to share how the institution uses Anaplan to optimize resource allocation and improve strategic decision-making.
Session Duration: 30 minutes; 1:30 - 2:00pm ET
2:15 PM
Institutional Debt: Strategic Tool or Undue Burden
Higher education institutions have continued to increase the amount of long-term debt that they hold during a period when enrollment growth has slowed and is expected to decline. This raises a question about whether the sector is approaching a limit to the benefits that debt-financing can provide. EY-Parthenon’s joint study with NACUBO found that decisions about debt are often made primarily on the basis of financial metrics that indicate if an institution can take on further debt without sufficient attention paid to whether it should. EY-Parthenon and panelists will present and discuss a framework for how institutions might think differently about their debt decisions going forward.
Session Duration: 75 minutes; 2:15 - 3:30pm ET
2:15 PM
Realizing Institutional Values of Equity and Inclusion: Integrating a DEI Plan in Alignment with the Institution's Strategic Plan
If educational institutions want to remain competitive, they need to attract, retain, and develop a diverse workforce and student body. To do so, organizations need to build systems that promote equity, inclusion, and diversity by integrating these concepts into the fabric of an institution’s culture. Presenters will walk through the process of creating the EID plan—from the initial vision, to gaining input and buy-in, to leading through change during implementation. Attendees will walk away understanding the importance of aligning an EID plan with an institution’s strategic plan and identifying possible challenges.
Session Duration: 75 minutes; 2:15 - 3:30pm ET
4:00 PM
Workforce Planning: The Key to Strategic Budget Planning
Mark Coldren, State University of New York at Buffalo
How can an institution effectively get every unit and group on campus to engage in effective workforce planning? With people being the largest cost for every higher education institutional budget, it is imperative that strategies are developed to control the effectiveness and overall cost of how we do work on our campuses. This interactive session will explore one institution’s approach to analyzing the overall spend and application of its workforce within the annual resource planning process.
Session Duration: 75 minutes; 4:00 - 5:15pm ET
4:00 PM
Revisiting an RCM Model to Improve Strategic and Financial Planning
Hear how one institution recently reassessed its RCM model. With COVID-19 still affecting university operations and finances, it was important to find ways to fund strategic priorities in times of stress and provide increased planning stability for units. Presenters will describe the review process changes made to the RCM model as a result, how changes supported the institution’s strategic plan, and the process of implementing and communicating the changes across the organization. Attendees will be given a resource document to improve their understanding of the process and to use as a sample for budget model reviews at their institutions.
Digital Transformation is not just about adding a new technology or automating processes. It's about using data and technology to transform your institution. In this moderated session our panel will share some of the challenges they have faced to enable their institutions to become more agile, and the ideas they are considering to trade capital expenditures (CAPEx) for operating expenses (OPEx); to rethink the physical footprint of the campus; and to increase competitiveness in attracting and retaining staff.
Session Duration: 75 minutes; 12:00 - 1:15pm ET
12:00 PM
The ERM Shuffle: Getting Started, Applying Strategies, Measuring Performance
Enterprise Risk Management is a powerful risk management approach, but there can be challenges in getting started, identifying and deciding which strategies to use, and settling on appropriate measures—including key risk and performance indicators. This session will demonstrate options to analyze and evaluate an institution’s ERM program and will review the strengths and weaknesses of the ERM implementation strategies. Whether you are trying to launch your first ERM program or are in the process of restarting a struggling or stalled one, this session will provide a path forward in your ERM journey.
Finance professionals in higher education today are getting asked new questions from leadership, colleagues, and board members. Old approaches to budgeting no longer work. Oracle helps customers use today’s innovative cloud technologies to increase efficiency, gain new insights, and modernize planning approaches. This session will discuss a best practice-based approach to planning in higher education, presented through real world planning examples on budgeting, strategic modeling, and cost of education. Learn how universities are leveraging modern features such as predictive planning and simulations to transform financial planning.
Many institutions want to better understand program costs, measure program costs, and consider how to grow revenues to help cover program costs. This session will identify ways to use your own data to determine program costs and how analytics can better inform, support, and guide decisions made throughout planning and budgeting processes. Once an institution has provided an estimate of program costs, we will explore how to link strategic goals, the institution’s budget, and operational plans in order to support the institution’s mission.
Session Duration: 75 minutes; 2:15 - 3:30pm ET
4:00 PM
Planning for Uncertainty: Agile Modeling in the Time of COVID-19
The unfolding COVID health crisis has dramatically impacted the way most institutions approach financial planning. In an era marked by increased volatility and uncertainty, institutions must embrace real‐time forecasting to successfully navigate rapid changes to business conditions. Review the processes and tools one institution developed to adapt to this new reality. Cross‐functional financial groups are tasked—on an ongoing basis—to develop scenarios and help assess the impact of exogenous shocks. Operational and financial data are then "fed" in real time to a driver‐based model to update financial forecasts, stress test scenarios and ultimately provide timely insights to the executive leadership team. The model and associated dashboards/reports were bootstrapped internally using Excel and Tableau, thereby providing an affordable and robust yet agile platform to support the University's modeling needs.
Session Duration: 75 minutes; 4:00 - 5:15pm ET
4:00 PM
Reimagining Your Budget and Planning Process to Drive Culture Change
Romayne Botti, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey New Brunswick Campus
Culture includes the history, norms, rules, and unique language of an organization. Culture is an institution’s greatest strength, but it also can be its greatest weakness. When we find ourselves in a position to reinvent processes—such as budget and planning—the history and expectations of the institution can impede progress on productive change. In this interactive session, presenters will explore how budget and planning processes support, shape, and have the possibility to transform culture. Using a case study from the Rutgers University RCM budget model review, explore how an institution can signal what it values through its budget process, as well has how to bring greater transparency and clarity to prioritizing resources across the enterprise.
Planning and budgeting staff are expected to be the most forward-looking personnel in the business office. However, recent events have demonstrated just how difficult predicting the future—or being prepared for the unexpected—can be. In this session, panelists will discuss how their institutions leverage data and analytics to be future focused in planning and budgeting efforts. They will offer best practices for asking the right questions, ensuring data quality and accessibility, and building an analytics-enabled culture.
Session Duration: 75 minutes; 12:00 - 1:15pm ET
1:30 PM
Demo Session: Syntellis Performance Solutions Case Studies and Successes
The Syntellis Axiom Higher Education platform is the leading budget, planning, and reporting solution that is purpose-built for colleges and universities of all sizes. Explore a trio of case studies highlighting common challenges clients faced prior to modernizing their systems, how those campuses achieved implementation success, and the latest trends Syntellis has seen throughout the pandemic and recovery. Session attendees will have the option of receiving several follow-up materials including a ROI planner for similar automation projects and campus case study documents.
Session Duration: 30 minutes; 1:30 - 2:00pm ET
2:15 PM
Strategically Aligning and Unifying the Capital Planning and Budgeting Process
Hear how one institution over several years developed a unified capital planning process that aligns its required reporting and budgeting tasks with its facilities' strategic planning process. The planning process engages stakeholders from across the institution, including in shared governance, in a way that is still efficient. Better understand the planning and budgeting system, how it was developed, and how you can develop a similar process at your institution.
Session Duration: 75 minutes; 2:15 - 3:30pm ET
2:15 PM
Teamwork Makes the Dream Work: Collaborative Financial Modeling
Higher education is undergoing momentous changes at an accelerated pace. Institutional hierarchies are flattening, and academic finance leaders need cross‐functional planning and strategy teams to combat a rapidly evolving marketplace. However, this level of teamwork can only develop when management builds an environment that supports it. This session will explore the tools and strategies needed to build a unifying environment that can support high‐performance planning teams. Furthermore, this session will describe how to implement and maintain cross‐department communication channels and creative collaboration to maximize institutional planning sessions.
Session Duration: 75 minutes; 2:15 - 3:30pm ET
4:00 PM
Enabling a Change in Budget Methodology and Transforming the Use of Data to Inform Decisions
During initial discussions and evaluations of solutions to help with budget reporting and forecasting, multi-year forecasting, and program profitability, an institution recognized it may be able to solve another, more pressing need. This need stemmed from the institution’s desire to revamp and change its budget development process to one that leveraged a zero-based budget methodology. Through further discussions, leaders realized they could analyze their spend and deploy a targeted ZBB solution to quickly assist with the budget development process. The institution was able to quickly deploy a user-friendly solution that enabled a new budget development process through hard work, determination, and managing internal stakeholders while realizing significant time savings.
The deadline to submit proposals for the 2021 Planning and Budgeting Forum was June 11, 2021. Visit the Submit Content page for more information on programs that accept proposals.
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