Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1904 [PAGE 46]

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UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

[Oct. 25,

of the amount necessary to carry the original amount of 217,000 dollars to completion in 25 years. Your committee finds no good reason for this shortage other than those above stated. The year was a good one in attendance, no expensive improvements were made and no large amount of apparatus was purchased. The unusual expense came in the increase of operating expenses. The income for the year was $70,655.38, and the expense, $58,655.38. The second year of the contract resulted in a total net profit of $9,000, the University receiving for its share $3,000. The attendance for the year in the Medical College was 100 more than the year previous, the total being 708 students. The attendance of the Dental School this first year was 134 students. The income from these two sources was $94,958.51, as reported by the Business Manager. The operating expenses by the same report were $85,958.51. The year was the most prosperous ever reached by the Medical College, the combined increase of students being 38.4 per cent over the attendance of the year previous. The income was 34.4 per cent over the previous year and the operating expense 46.5 per cent increase. It will be noticed that the year's record also shows an abnormal increase in the operating expenses. The estimates of the Actuary for the present year (third year of contract) are $104,000 for income and $95,182.92 for operating expenses. The net gain for the year, therefore, is estimated at $8,817.03, of which the University's share would be $2,939.01. The estimated increase of students is not given in the Actuary's estimate so that a comparison can not be made with the attendance of last year. The estimated increase in income is 9.3 per cent over the preceding year and the estimated increase in expenses which this Board is asked to confirm is 10.7 per cent over that of last year. It will be noticed that the per cent of increase in the expenses in these three years is in every instance greater than the increase in income, and that the amount of net profits continually decreases in the same period. This must be a matter of great regret to every one connected with the Medical College and the University, and it is with the serious purpose of changing this condition of things that your committee makes so elaborate a report. Your committee realizes that the loss of a single year's net income is not a matter of any grave importance, though the loss would necessarily postpone the termination of your contract another year. Such a loss may be occasioned by a stress of hard times which may reduce the attendance seriously, so that there may be no surplus f or, by an unavoidable calamity, which may enormously increase the expense. It proves to be a matter of deep concern, however, when in the most prosperous times, with attendance increasing and income increasing beyond all precedents, the expense should be allowed to increase beyond all proportion to either. The precedents established by such a course, the habits of extravagance engendered, and the quiet indifference in which the recurring failures to fulfill each annual part of the contract is contemplated by all concerned are matters which your, committee believes to be of the gravest importance. Your committee in confirming the estimates of the income of the present year, as reported by the Actuary, has estimated on an increase of 15 per cent in the attendance in both the Medical College and Dental School. This allows an increase of 106 medical students (a total of 814) and 20 dental students (a total of 154). The income for the year, therefore, would be $120,780. JSTow, by reducing the estimates of expense to $82,380 there will be a surplus of $38,400 of which the University's share would be $12,000, which is the necessary amount contemplated in the contract. Your committee, therefore, recommends that the estimate of the Actuary be returned with the request that the executive faculty of the Medical College and the President of the University reduce the estimated expenses to $82,380 for the present year, or as nearly to that sum as existing contracts will allow, and that they be instructed, in submitting hereafter the estimates of the Actuary, to make the annual expense within $38,400 of a conservative estimate of the income for that year. Your committee believes that this can be done without any real injury to the Medical College or Dental School and will aid largely in a healthful and natural growth in all their parts. Your committee further recommends that each year the estimates for the next year's income and expenses of the College of Medicine be submitted to this Board for consideration at its regular March meeting