Rosovsky Balances Faculty Budget

Dean Rosovsky balanced the Faculty of Arts and Sciences budget last year, bringing the Faculty into the black for the first time in seven years.

Last year's budget is a result of "careful management and cooperation of the people involved," Rosovsky said Sunday, citing department chairmen as particularly helpful while under financial pressure.

The Faculty had an $80,000 surplus last year, representing less than 1 per cent of the $85 to $90 million yearly budget. When Rosovsky became dean in 1973, he inherited three years of deficits.

Two years ago Faculty administrators targeted the fiscal year ending June 30, 1977 for a balanced budget. At that time, Rosovsky announced guidelines for budgetary cuts focusing first on such non-teaching areas as energy costs. However, some teaching programs were also affected, Robert E. Kaufmann '62, assistant dean of the Faculty for financial affairs, said Sunday.

The rate of senior faculty appointments has decreased slightly and some small courses are now offered on an alternate year basis, but Kaufmann said he does not think there has been any major "demonstrable effect on undergraduate education." Academically troubled departments do not suffer primarily because of their finances, he added.

Although the actual Faculty budget increases yearly, less money is expended now in real dollar terms than in the early '70s, Kaufmann said.

There were a number of major changes this year, and "some worked for us and some worked against us," Kaufmann said.

This winter's cold weather temporarily threatened the balanced budget goal, but other cuts, as well as increased revenue and a "banner year" for the Harvard College Fund--which raised more than $6 million last year--compensated for higher energy costs, Kaufmann said.

After working for six years to balance the budget, "it is certainly a nice feeling to have gotten there," he said.

However, comparing the small surplus to the first win in a football season, he said being in the black is "not a cause for unmitigated celebration. We have things under control and now we have to keep it that way."

Harvard still faces rising costs and tuition will probably continue to rise, though at a slower rate, he said. In addition, most administrators agree that once the initial cutbacks are made, it gets harder and harder to find new ways to economize.

In 1975-76, the Faculty ran a relatively insignificant deficit of $249,000. But two years earlier, there was $2 million worth of red ink. Kaufmann said that until he examines carefully all of last year's financial data, he cannot determine exactly which changes were significant.