The university is a mere three months away from implementing its new budget model.

The Professional and Scientific Council held an open forum Thursday in the Gallery of the Memorial Union to inform members of the progress on the budget model.

The new model, called the resource management model, distributes funding among Iowa State’s colleges based on enrollment and tuition revenues.

However, for the 2009 fiscal year, which begins July 1, 2008, the university is taking a hybrid approach to ease the transition into the new budget model.

“In this first year, we are taking the budget we’ve already had and just switching it around,” said Ellen Rasmussen, associate vice president for budgeting and planning.

Over the next year, Iowa State’s colleges will get a taste of how they will operate once the new model goes into full effect.

For example, each college will be carefully monitoring changes in enrollment to get an idea of how much funding to expect based on future changes. Administrators of colleges and departments will also begin to work collaboratively with the president’s budget council when requesting strategic investment funding.

One of the biggest changes the new model will make is making colleges and other departments responsible for managing utilities with their own budgets. This gives these units more responsibility to check utility rates and consumption and to select thermostat settings.

“What I hope will happen is there is at least some conversation with what temperature levels we are all comfortable at,” Rasmussen said.

Heading into this period of financial change, the university has already completed estimates of enrollment and tuition for the next year.

The Board of Regents approved a 3.2 -percent in-state tuition increase last December.

The university has already put in its request to the Iowa Legislature for next fiscal year’s funding. Part of the funding is expected to be allocated to faculty salary increases.

The amount of funding provided will be decided on before the Legislature closes for the year on April 22. After that time, funding must be approved by the governor’s budget office, then approved by the Board of Regents and split between the regent state universities and special K-12 schools.

Rasmussen said she expects to receive roughly the same amount of funding as last year – $15.9 million.

She said everything appears to be on schedule for the budget transition.

“We have to be on track now – we have no choice,” she said. “The board has its expectations, and people want their new salaries.”