Repository: UIHistories Project: Board of Trustees Minutes - 1916 [PAGE 784]

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784

UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.

[Aug. 4,

materials, or difficulty of agreeing upon details in the building, the time for the completion of the building is postponed beyond the end of the biennium, the sum set apart for the erection of the building still in the State Treasury would lapse under I h e interpretation which the State Auditor has given us as to the term for which the University appropriation has been made. Again the board, if it approves this budget, will authorize the expenditure of $50,000 in the purchase of books. Many of these books are not immediately obtainable, and even if the order were already placed, it may not be possible to have them on the shelves within the fiscal year, and some of them, especially the rate books, might not be in our possession until after the close of the biennium. If the board attempts to reserve a fund in the State Treasury to meet the payment for the books when they arrive, its purpose will be thwarted by the fact that the fund lapses under the interpretation above named. This is also true of the apparatus and equipment of various kinds which require a long time for manufacture or preparation. As a result, if the board is to expend all its revenue wisely, it must authorize a larger expenditure than the sum at its disposal for the given year. There is always a chance, of course, in this process of adjustment that for a time the expenditures authorized will exceed the available income and authorities are not altogether agreed as to the best method of financing such a situation. Some of the other universities, like most towns and cities, in their authorization of expenditures habitually exceed the sums available and provide for adjustment if necessary by borrowing money to anticipate the revenue of the succeeding year. The appropriation bill provides for five million dollars for the biennium and does not divide it into annual installments. Consequently all the money which is in the State Treasury to the credit of this fund is available at any time for proper expenditures to be charged to this fund up to the limit of the appropriation. By the last of May or 1st of June, 1916, there will be a very considerable sum in the Treasury available under the terms of the bill for University purposes, out of the levy of 1915. It is perfectly proper, in my opinion, for the board to draw upon this fund to meet current bills, and thus anticipate the revenue for the next year. On the other hand, there is, of course, a certain risk involved in this policy. If the State Auditor should rule that the funds available for any,given year are only those which proceed from a corresponding tax levy, there would be a distinct deficit in the financial obligations of the University for the present year in case any expenditures are authorized above those provided for in this budget. If the board, then, should construct other buildings than those here provided for; namely, those for which contracts have been already signed, or purchase any more land than that already purchased, it would face a distinct deficit in case any such ruling should be made. On the other hand, if it does not take this risk it is running what is, to my mind, an even more serious risk of finding at the end of the second year that certain funds still in the State Treasury unexpended will be declared lapsed under the ruling of the Auditor as already given! I should, therefore, advise the board to proceed with the preparation of plans for the erection of the buildings given in the supplementary list; namely: (1) The -Woman's Residence Hall $110,000 (2) The School of Education Building 140,000 (3) The Smith Music Building 215,000 (4) Addition to Natural History Building 75,000 (5) Addition to Transportation Building 30,000 (6) Agricultural Buildings 76,000 (7) Medicine and Pharmacy 100,000 Total $746,000 Of this sum total, I should think one-third might be met out of the revenue of the second year of the biennium. The other two-thirds would have to be carried over into the first year of the following biennium, July 1, 1917-June 30, 1919. It is to be noted, also, that great care must be exercised in assigning the expenditures authorized by the Board to the various State and Federal funds, in order to forestall serious complications arising from the too early or too late exhaustion of such funds. This is specifically the duty of the Comptroller. Prof. Shattuck handled this most admirably. I did it the best I could the past year, during the confusion incident to change of Comptrollers. I trust the new Comptroller will soon be able to do this work, himself. PART I. EXPENSE BUDGET. SUMMARY. A. Total estimated income B. Total estimated expenditure Balance INCOME. I. Federal Sources. 1. Endowment fund 2. Morrill Fund 3. Nelson Fund 4. Hatch Fund 5. Adams Fund 6. Smith-Lever Fund Total, Federal sources .$3,061,377 80 3,059,734 74 $1,643 06 00 > 00 00 00 00 00 $148,682 00

$32,400 25,000 25,000 15,000 15,000 36,282