The president’s office will soon lose its primary budget analyst and a replacement will not be sought.

Mark Chidister, assistant to the president for budget planning and analysis, will return to his faculty position in the College of Design on July 1.

ISU President Gregory Geoffroy said the assistant position would remain vacant and Chidister’s duties would be transferred to assistant provost Ellen Rasmussen.

Geoffroy said Chidister, who has served as the president’s assistant since June 2001, first told him he was considering returning to the professorate last fall.

“He thought about this long and hard. It wasn’t a snap-quick decision,” Geoffroy said. “You don’t try to talk people out of things they want to do.”

As Geoffroy’s assistant, Chidister prepared budget materials for the Iowa Board of Regents and oversaw other budget and infrastructure planning tasks.

Geoffroy said Chidister has encountered cutbacks in state appropriations and increases in student tuition while he worked with the general university budget.

Although state funding has dropped 11 percent from 2001-02 to 2005-06, student fees have jumped 47 percent, according to the ISU budget.

“He never had to make the [final] decisions, but he had to look at them and I think that weighed on him,” Geoffroy said.

“He’s been doing it five years and I guess he thought that was long enough.”

Since September 2005, Chidister has led the planning committee to develop a new university budget model, but will also step down from that post.

Geoffroy said the implementation of the budget model should be completed by Chidister’s departure in July. He said developing the new model was not a factor in Chidister’s decision to leave his office.

“I don’t think it’s necessarily bad timing,” he said.

“By the time he steps out of the position, we hope to have the model developed.”

Chidister’s responsibilities will be shifted to the Office of the Provost, with Rasmussen overseeing budget planning and analysis for the foreseeable future, Geoffroy said. He said the Chidister’s $131,315 salary would probably transferred to the provost office to hire additional staff.

“Nothing is ever permanent, but I don’t have any plans to move away from these plans any time in the near future,” he said. “They’ll have to reshape their office, but they’ll get the resources they need.”

Chidister also served as Iowa State’s primary contact for reports submitted to the Regents’ office and coordinated the president’s council meetings, which will be overseen by John Anderson, assistant to the president for communications.

Chidister and Rasmussen could not be reached for comment.