Follow-up Budget Questions for New Chairs: Flexibility, Carry Over, and Incentives

To provide some basic budgeting and finance information to new chairs with little or no experience in this area, in my June article I recommended some questions for them to ask their dean prior to or at the outset of their terms as chairs. The questions on the sources of academic income, how department operating budgets are set, and what the department must pay for from its allocated resources were fundamental but lead to more complex questions down the road. In a subsequent article, I discussed the personnel budget along with other oversight responsibilities that chairs must manage, including grant and philanthropic accounts.