UW Madison's Summer Term budget model is intended to incentivize departments to offer summer courses that meet student demand and interests, attract new student audiences, and to make efficient use of campus resources. It also offers the potential for departments to develop a new revenue stream. 

In this model, departments are able to directly receive a portion of paid tuition that is in surplus of expenses. However, departments are also responsible for covering any losses. As such, it requires careful planning, with close attention to both estimated revenues and expenses. 

The L&S summer term planning process, outlined below, is designed with the intent of giving departments tools they need to effectively plan and estimate costs and potential surplus revenue.

General Timeline:

August/September: Departments finalize plans for next summers course offerings.

• Update the list of courses to include in the Summer Course Preview.
• Submit departmental Summer Budget Proposal to L&S.

October: L&S Admin reviews departments summer budget proposals for profitability.

• L&S will provide departments with expense details and initial financial reports for their proposal.
• L&S will let departments know if we see concerns about the proposal.

April: Departments monitor initial enrollments, and review the updated Preliminary Enrollment Financial Report (provided by L&S), and take any action needed. This may include course cancellations if some courses are not enrolling as expected.

• L&S will provide departments with updated expense details and financial reports based on initial enrollments
• L&S will let departments know if we have concerns about potential financial losses.

Final revenue reports: L&S will provide final revenue reports to departments in August/September. Transfers occur in Mid-October.

DEPARTMENT ACTIONS:

• Review Planning Guidance
• Edit Summer Course Preview
• Submit departmental Summer Budget Proposal

Deadline: TBD (typically mid-October)

Each year in late summer, L&S will initiate next year's summer planning with departments, asking them to complete the following:

(1) Update your department's course list for Summer Course Preview

The Summer Course Preview is a partial listing of summer courses for the upcoming summer. It is a tool for departments to showcase their summer course offerings before the official schedule of classes is published in January. Each August, L&S will prompt departments to indicate which courses should be included in the preview.

(2) Submit your department's Summer Budget Proposals

The Summer Budget Proposal spreadsheet is the detailed plan of your departments summer courses, planned appointments, and expenses. The proposal will be reviewed by the L&S Administration.

• Departments may schedule planned summer courses during Initial Call for the schedule build, before you have final approval for your plan (approval will come before Final Call)
• After L&S review, L&S will send to departments:
  • Expense Details report - L&S - This report contains specific details for instructors, student appointments, and supplies & expenses.
  • Initial Financial Report - This report creates a surplus estimate for the department, based on estimated paid credits and planned expenses.

(3) After the department submits their proposal, they must keep L&S informed about changes to the plan. This includes adding courses, canceling courses, or changing the instructor. All of these types of changes will impact estimated revenues and must be reviewed.

• Submit changes via the L&S TLA via Instructional Staffing Request form (instructions). This includes canceling or adding courses, changing appointments, etc. 
• L&S will update the departments Expense Details and Financial Reports accordingly.

Planning Guidance

• Review your previous summers financial and expenditures reports to help you plan next years course offerings, and to estimate paid credits and costs. Reports from previous years are available in summer Box folders.
• You must explicitly consider costs and revenues. Whether a course is "profitable" (i.e., makes a positive contribution to department surplus) depends on both the instructional costs and the number of paid credits. Courses with higher instructional costs require more paid credits to "break even."
  
  • Pay special attention to courses that would or could decrease department surplus.
  • Courses intended for graduate students will generate little or no revenue if these students have tuition waivers.
  • L&S will scrutinize low-enrollment or low-expected revenue courses, though they may occasionally be approved.
• Review each course you may offer in the context of all courses offered. Since elimination of one course might increase enrollment on the remaining courses, even courses that make a positive contribution to department surplus deserve scrutiny.
• Avoid offering multiple courses in the same summer session (i.e. in the same 4-week slot) that appeal to the same group of students.
• Use one of the recommended session dates (L&S Recommended Summer Sessions for Course Scheduling). Do not use early sessions (with session code beginning 'Y') or and late sessions (sessions ending later than the general 8-week 'DHH' session).
• Departments are responsible for advertising summer-term courses to internal audiences (UW Madison students).
• Summer offerings are exempt from the L&S Policy on Offering Undergraduate Class Sections with Online or Hybrid Modality, no special permission is required. Departments must indicate when they are scheduling an online course whether the classes are synchronous (required specific meeting times online) or asynchronous (students are not meeting together at a specific time). This cannot be changed after students start enrolling.

DEPARTMENT ACTION:

• Review preliminary enrollment and financial data reports provided by L&S.
• Take action when you see concerning trends or need to make other changes:
  • Determine how you will address courses with estimated low revenue surplus or loss.
  • Notify L&S of cancellations via the Course Cancellation and Non-Standard Times request form (instructions). 
  • Send other summer changes through the Instructional Staffing Request Form.

L&S will provide an updated Preliminary Enrollment Financial Report to each department that includes early enrollment data and projected revenue so that departments can take action if enrollments were not as expected.

Addressing Anticipated Losses

Associate Dean Jennifer Klippel will consult with the Divisional Academic Associate Deans, and then follow up with departments with projected losses to determine a plan specific to their situation. General principles, however, are:

• If the departments overall surplus is negative, L&S will ask the department for a plan to address anticipated losses, for example canceling courses or reducing spending on summer 131 funding. This plan is subject to L&S approval; L&S will make the final decision.
• Even if the overall departmental surplus is positive, any cases of a course with projected loss will be carefully reviewed and may be discussed with the department for appropriate action.

Course cancellation should occur as soon as possible as it creates significant problems for students. Course cancellation should not be viewed as a substitute for careful advanced planning. (See: L&S Class Cancellation: Policy & Procedures.)

Departments must keep L&S informed about changes to the plan. This includes adding courses, canceling courses, or changing the instructor. All of these types of changes will impact estimated revenue and must be reviewed. Submit changes via the L&S TLA via Instructional Staffing Request form (instructions).

DEPARTMENT ACTION:

• Review your departments Financial Reports with Revenue (sent by L&S in August)
• Revenue is typically transferred to departments in October (Summer Accounting in L&S)

The College will distribute final Financial Reports with Revenue in August/September each year. This report shows actual instructional costs charged to departmental summer 131-A48##93 accounts, enrollments, student credit hours, paid credits, and department surplus. Costs may ultimately be higher (and departmental surplus lower) if some costs have not been posted to WISER at the time of the report.

Summer term HR appointments and compensation have a distinct policy and compensation issues that are different from academic year appointments. The following links have information about summer appointments:

• L&S Summer Instructional Appointments: Policy and Guidance
• L&S Summer HR Compensation Policies and Practices

Summer 131 Funding: The default funding for summer instructional expenses. Funding string = 131-2 A48##93. '##' is the department number from your unit's UDDS. Precise funding strings are listed on the Expense Details report.

Actual Costs: Expenses incurred by the department on Summer 131 funding. The planning materials will calculate estimated fringes, which may be higher or lower than actual fringes. The final cost of summer instructional salaries will include actual fringes.

Paid Credits: Paid credits are associated with students who paid tuition to the campus tuition pool.

• Paid credit hours are not affected by factors that determine the amount of tuition paid, like residency status (in-state or out-of-state) or level (undergraduate, graduate, or special student).
• Students in non-pooled programs (e.g., 131 capstone or masters programs) or who received full tuition waivers (e.g., graduate students with tuition remission, or students with veteran's benefits) do not generate paid credits.
• Estimating paid credits:
  • Departments should reference actual paid credit figures from previous summers whenever possible. These figures are available on the Final Financial Report with Revenue, available in summer Box folders.
  • Departments will need to make educated guesses for new courses, or courses that have not been recently offered.

Revenue per paid credit: The fixed dollar amount that departments will receive for each paid credit. Current amount = $350, last updated summer 2024. This rate is reviewed every two summers and adjusted based on changes in revenue per credit.

Department surplus: The department surplus is equal to revenue per paid credit minus actual costs on Summer 131 funding. ($350 x number of paid credits) - instructional costs