A Budget Transformation Initiative update from the Advisory Budget Committee co-chairs

Dear colleagues,

Last month, President Linton outlined the foundational principles of the university’s Budget Transformation initiative — an ambitious project poised to help us:

• Invest in our people.
• Improve resource allocation.
• Increase efficiency.
• Strengthen accountability and impact.
• Accelerate financial sustainability and growth.

First and foremost, we want to thank all who attended and/or joined the live stream of the winter Faculty Senate Open Forum last Thursday. Your questions were thoughtful and demonstrative of our engaged university culture — and we greatly appreciated Faculty Senate affording us the time and space to walk through the Budget Transformation framework with you.

Open forum highlights

During the open forum, we shared:

• K-State’s core financial objectives, including:
  • compensation for our people.
  • strategic alignment with our Next-Gen goals.
  • continued prioritization of student affordability.
  • financial stability.
  • facility/technology infrastructure investment.
  • operational excellence.
• A breakdown of the factors applying both immediate and forecasted budgetary pressure.
• The details of our Budget Transformation framework, which will expand the ways we fund, invest and adapt.
• A review of the governance and implementation framework.
• Our ongoing communications and socialization plan.
• A preview of the university’s Compensation Study timeline for calendar year 2026, which will include below-market adjustments by the end of the year.

Where to watch the recording

The recording of the open forum is available online by logging in with your eID and password. We highly encourage members of our university community to watch the recording if you were unable to attend. Additionally, we’ve added a frequently asked questions page to the Budget Transformation website, which includes a short glossary of common terms and acronyms related to the budget.

The work of our governance committees continues

The Advisory Budget Committee continues to meet weekly, developing recommendations that will inform the implementation of the individual components of the Budget Transformation framework — all while keeping a close eye on the many moving parts that may change our estimates and calculations along the way, including legislative actions and enrollment projections. As recommendations are finalized, they will be forwarded to the Executive Budget Committee for review — with the first review scheduled for later this week.

This governance workflow, in and of itself, underscores that this process is an ongoing conversation, involving many individuals across the institution. As was stated in President Linton’s letter last month, it is our commitment to share more details as decisions are made, ensuring you are prepared and supported as we move into implementation.

As our governance committees drive forward this complex budget transformation process, it can be easy for each of us to lose sight of why this effort is important from our own individual perspectives:

• We are creating a budgetary framework that supports competitive market-based pay and performance-based rewards.
• We are building the foundation for improved and enhanced teaching, research and working environments.
• We are driving efficiency gains through improved systems and technology.
• We are achieving these efforts through a strategy that minimizes the kind of budget cuts that would otherwise paralyze and/or impede progress.

This is what it means to be a next-gen land-grant university. We are fueling our people's ability to do what you all do best: drive great impact for generations to come.

Go ‘Cats!

Jesse Perez Mendez
Provost and executive vice president

Ethan Erickson
Vice president for administration and finance