The New Millennium Task Force on Finances was charged with examining all current fiscal resources and allocations across the university with an ultimate goal of determining optimal uses of resources, identifying resource needs, and identifying new and/or alternative sources of revenue in light of plans articulated by the task forces on Academic Program, Academic Support, Facilities, and Student Body.

The task force developed fundamental analysis models that facilitated longitudinal assessments of CSU's functional components (instruction, scholarships and fellows, institutional support, operations and maintenance of physical plant, student services, academic support, auxiliary enterprises, public service and research) as well as comparative assessments of CSU against "like" universities across the state and the nation. The analyses made several critical discoveries that lay the groundwork for strategic financial considerations.

First, the university, because it has not actively raised much money in the private sector and because the faculty has not had the time to develop a large number of competitive grant proposals for submission to federal agencies, depends heavily on appropriated funds from the state. This reliance leaves the university vulnerable to funding cutbacks due to economic downturns and changes in state spending priorities in which higher education is viewed as the largest discretionary item in the state's budget.

Second, the university experienced exponential student enrollment growth from 1989 through 1994 when student enrollment almost doubled from 3,670 FTE's to 6,365 FTE's This growth, coupled with inadequate cost management and inadequate revenue generation, led to operating deficits for the years 1994 to 1997 ($77,000; $537,000; $1,404,000; and $893,000, respectively). Instruction, the largest single functional cost component in the university's budget at 39% of total operating costs, is significantly higher than the average instructional cost at an Illinois public university (29%). More importantly, the cost of instruction increased 35% from 1993 through 1998, while the full-time equivalent student enrollment decreased 14%. This apparent spending anomaly, coupled with the historical operating deficits, require that the university engage in an in-depth and university-wide cost structure evaluation to ensure that

costs and revenues are structurally balanced and that spending allocations support articulated university priorities.

The final significant strategic discovery identified an area of financial opportunity. According to the Council for Aid to Education (CAE), the average master's level public university generates approximately $2.6 million in annual operating revenues from private sector sources, compared to approximately $600,000 at CSU. The university, therefore, has the opportunity and responsibility to significantly enhance and diversify its revenue generation capability through this improvement and focus upon its institutional advancement and fund-raising operations.