Dear Nameless:
I feel for you situation of having done a great job and yet not being
rewarded with even the freedom to buy some needed equipment. May I share
with you how I accomplish the same goals here.
The mission of my facility is to help the progress of science in FCCC. Our
key to some degree of independence is to establish multiple funding sources
such that no one administrator or agency need to account for all our income
and spending. This is further diversified into a spectrum of services that
are either in various stages of development. To do all that, we are
constantly in a negative balance overall because of constant growth that
has been approved by the administration (who does not have the funds yet if
ever, but receives faculty appreciation with the good intentions) even when
individual services may post a profit. In addition, because the efficiency
of the total is greater than the sum of the parts, no service is really
posting a profit compared with the situation when it were to stand on its
own. I understand the administration and agree that a facility should not
post a profit or the surplus should be returned. Indeed the legally correct
opinion is that you should lower your charge back and let the surplus be
used for other services in your institution. If a company makes a profit,
it either distribute a dividend, pays its debts, or grow/diversify
according to an established plans. The key is to have an established plan
on hand! The reason for strategic planning is so that when you have a
surplus, you are already approved on where to spend it. The system used at
FCCC to approve equipment purchase with surplus budget is peer review. I
routinely have a wish list on hand that has been endorsed by the majority
of the faculty, and often submitted as instrumentation grants to
foundations and NIH to establish the peer approval, although not funded. It
is not too late for you to buy time to develop such grass root support for
a piece of popular equipment. The administrator will thank you for
providing your own equipment funds, the faculty will thank you for getting
the equipment they want, and your facility will diversify....... Your money
is yours to direct only if they owe you.
Good luck with strategic planning!
Tony
At 05:10 PM 6/21/00 -0400, Ombudsman account for AECOM wrote:
>
>A question about funding a facility.
>
>What if you ran a core facility. Your mission statement is to provide
>cutting edge molecular biology services etc. It also states that the
>facility should run in chargeback mode and the objective would be to have
>zero dollars left at the end of the fiscal year. This is probably a good
>description of a majority of ABRF facilities. Now, what if because of
>unanticipated cost savings, whether by protocol changes, dropping of
>service contracts etc., there has been a net
>accrual of funds at the end of the year. Money that has been taken in from
>researchers to purchase supplies and maintain the facility in cutting edge
>condition is at least temporarily in a positive cash flow. A business
>would have no problem with this situation. The company would use the
>excess cash to enhance and modernize itself. (I won't even comment on
>bonuses). But to a core facility this can be perceived as a problem. From
>talking to other core directors that found themselves in this situation
>I've heard several results. One director had to divide all the excess
>money and cut checks for all the researchers. I've heard of others who
>have found ways to use the excess to modernize their facility (I just
>can't find any at the moment). And herein lies the question. If you have
>found yourself in this situation and your institute
>allowed you to purchase enhancements to your facility (capital equipment),
>could you post the justifications that you used? My institute accounting
>is unsure of the idea of accrued funds in a facility being used for
>equipment
>purchases. If I was able to show them examples of other facilities that
>found ways to do this without raising the ire of either the Institute or
>NIH bean counters I can undo a logjam of uncertainty.
>Why ombudsman? I don't want "no" for an answer.
>
>Thank you,
>Successful but Sleepless
>
>
>
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Anthony T. Yeung, Ph.D.
Director, Fannie E. Rippel Biotechnology Facility
Member, Institute for Cancer Research
Fox Chase Cancer Center
7701 Burholme Ave., Philadelphia, PA 19111
Voice: 215-728-2488 FAX: 215-728-3647 email: AT_Yeung@FCCC.edu
Public Key: 4F3A 98D3 AC8B B56D A49B 4CD6 3057 376A 2951 68A4
http://www.fccc.edu/research/labs/yeung/
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