FY23 Ready or not, here we come!

Did you know that the IT Finance team has been preparing for the FY23 budget all year? We started by designing and readying the community in July 2021, then we launched the official kickoff in September 2021, and we’ve just concluded our planning in late April 2022 – it’s been a long road. Did you ever wonder…why does it take a full year to plan the budget?

Starting in July and August 2021, Courtlandt Stretton and Matt Tarducci completed their yearlong evaluation of the calculation methodology for ITS rates. This analysis, which had not been conducted in more than ten years, led to a series of recommendations, which were approved and published for units to use in their FY23 planning. Their collaborative approach, and partnership with members of the Yale community, led to the smooth and successful adoption of new rates.

Following their analysis, in September 2021, we kicked off the FY23 portfolio budget cycle. The community was invited to submit their project requests in the form of a business case. These submissions were reviewed and aggregated by the PMO, and adjusted and fine-tuned by each submitter. After three Pillar Chair meetings, and coordination between IT Finance, the PMO, and the community, a total of 31 projects (client and centrally-funded) were brought forward.

Next, we focused on the RTS budget cycle. We evaluated parameter growth, project tails, software growth above parameter funding, and a few programmatic proposals (e.g., OPMO and funding for an IT Capital Refresh program), which were summarized, entered, and submitted into YBT by Mike DeAngelo and Courtlandt Stretton.

Then, team IT Finance had a few days to write the narrative describing and summarizing our submission with special attention to material changes, with a lot of help from the ITS Community. We finally hit the “submit” button…but we weren’t quite done…

Next, we prepared a fifty-minute presentation to share current year accomplishments, next year’s needs, and a strategy to get from here to there. The strategy included thirty-one projects, seven programmatic requests, market changes, community needs, and anticipated obstacles. The audience–the Budget Advisory Group (BAG for short)–consistsedof individuals from across the community including faculty and staff, Finance partners, and the Provost’s office. John Barden led the presentation and responded to their thoughtful questions.

Key aspects of the FY23 Budget proposal include:

• Continued focus on meeting the diverse and evolving needs of the Yale community, with the net five years focused on recruiting, training, and internal controls, as well as core support areas.
• Rebalancing decision authority, leaning toward decentralization of areas that improve connection to faculty for unique discipline-specific needs (areas include desktop support, lab support and class tech support), and centralization in areas of high risk or reward which are critical to the institutional decision-making process or shared goals.
• Expanding support for the project management function to provide boarder coverage and capacity to cover University operations.
• Maintaining revenue targets, to better understand the impact of our rate model changes and their impact on consumption (we anticipate a modification request for the FY24 budget cycle).
• Increased strategy around our planning, recruiting, and retention practices, due to supply chain shortages, significant delivery delays, and a tight labor market.
• Balancing the desire to slow annual growth and the University’s increased dependency in categories like software (subscriptions), cloud computing, and infrastructure services, which are driving up costs faster than parameter growth. 

So, there you have it – our journey began in July and concluded in late April. We are starting to think about year-end accruals, closing the books on FY22 and writing another narrative. Before you know it, we will be ready to do it all over again.