Fiscal Year 2024 Budget

DePaul’s Strategic Resource Allocation Committee, known as SRAC, has been working extremely hard to create a balanced budget for the next fiscal year. Without any corrective actions, we will face a gap between our revenues and expenses for FY24, which runs from July 1, 2023 – June 30, 2024. The revenue shortfalls are primarily linked to:

• Changing enrollment demographics shared across the private university landscape, particularly a decrease in graduate enrollment;
• Discontinuation of temporary government stimulus provided during the pandemic;
• Rising costs due to the current inflationary environment;
• Increase in financial aid provided by the university’s own dollars.

The proposed budget includes reducing costs among faculty expenses ($11.3 million), staff expenses ($28.3 million), and departmental expenses ($16.9 million). As a first step in the budget reduction process, on March 30, the Board of Trustees approved the implementation of a Voluntary Separation Incentive Program for eligible full-time administration and staff. For budget reductions affecting faculty, the university is reviewing such areas as teaching load, class scheduling, and vacant lines. Faculty-related budget reductions will occur over two years, with 60% taking place in FY24 and 40% in FY25.

The Voluntary Separation Incentive Program, or VSIP, is a 100% voluntary program that gives eligible full-time staff and administrators an incentive payment to retire – or take an early retirement – from the university. Out of 1,389 full-time staff and administration, 205 people are eligible. Staff and administrators who meet any of the following criteria by June 30, 2023 are eligible:

• At least age 55 with a minimum of 20 years of cumulative full-time service;
• At least age 62 with a minimum of 10 years of cumulative full-time service;
• The sum of your age and cumulative full-time service equals at least 75.

Our highest priority remains delivering a quality and impactful education to our diverse student population. To uphold that commitment, DePaul is retaining all its active tenured faculty positions.

Out of the 240 term faculty who have contracts with the university, six term faculty will not be reappointed for the 2023-24 academic year. Term faculty received notifications from their colleges and schools about their contract renewal status on April 10, the annual Faculty Handbook deadline. Decisions about contract renewals for term faculty were made following joint discussions between the provost and deans, with direct input from department chairs and faculty, based on enrollment levels.

In addition, certain vacant term faculty positions will not be filled. Each college and school will continue to include term faculty members in conversations about the budget process.

There are no plans to eliminate programs or departments at this time.

The University Library was originally given a $1.5 million target to cut from its $5 million departmental budget. After further review, university leadership determined the $1.5 million budget cut to the library is not a viable option.

The proposed budget includes a 6% increase for institutional financial aid for fiscal year 2024 over the prior year’s budget to $301.3 million, primarily to honor commitments to continuing undergraduate students and to support new scholarship strategies for transfer and graduate students.

The voluntary separation program is funded through a special distribution from the endowment.