David Woodward, Budget Center Senior Director
David joined Tufts in October 2011, serving as budget director for the university until June 2013 and then project director for the TEAM Initiative until June 2014. He has more than twenty years of experience in higher-education finance as a consultant and at MIT, Brandeis and Tufts. In February 2015, David was appointed senior director for the Budget Center.
How did you prepare for the Budget Center’s launch?
We spent a good deal of time recruiting and training staff. We also completed the design of the new Axiom budget system and established roles for the Budget Center and the groups we’d be working with: TSS, Human Resources and other departments. All budgets, including personnel rosters, had to be loaded into Axiom, which was a major effort from March until the end of June that succeeded thanks to the work of several people in the schools and divisions. While our efforts in training, system development, and roles clarification continue, we had enough of each to support the launch in August.
What did you need to do right away once you opened for business?
Axiom is now the system of record for budgeting at Tufts so our staff needed to become very familiar with Axiom’s functionality and the data it contained. Up until last summer, most areas of the university had been working in spreadsheets to develop their budgets. They would send these to their BFOs (budget and fiscal officers), who would compile that information into a larger workbook and send it to Finance and Planning for yet another compilation. Formats varied and data was often transcribed. Axiom is replacing that approach.
You work with managers and supervisors who have been designated as program managers. What is the reasoning behind this new role?
The program manager model is a major step forward for Tufts. It clarifies who (within a school or department) has authority over budgets and identifies which individuals we in the Budget Center need to support with clear and useful financial information.
We’ve been working with EADs and VPs since before the launch to designate individuals within their departments to serve as program managers. The process is not yet complete — we haven’t yet identified program managers in every school and division but we have in most. In the coming months, we plan to further develop these relationships so the Budget Center can provide direct budget support and program managers can operate at a more strategic programmatic level.
What have you accomplished to date?
Our first deliverable was supporting the Q1 forecast. It was rocky but we were able to do so relying on Axiom and we know that things will get better from here. This first year is a period of transition. With each quarter, we’ll be refining all of our processes, including how we prepare forecasts.
Having supported the Q1 forecast, which was relatively high level, we spent much of the fall drafting the FY 17 budgets in Axiom. We have a preliminary budget for the university along with a second forecast based on actuals through Q2. This budget and forecast will support conversations at the February board meeting and final budget discussions between executive leadership and the deans at the end of March.
What do you see as the most important thing the Budget Center needs to accomplish in its first year?
We understand that we need to earn people’s trust and are committed to doing so. The Budget Center is new; about half of our staff is new to Tufts and about half the others are new to the groups they serve. We are learning these businesses by meeting with people and building an understanding of their budgets. People have been patient with us as we move to the new model and we really appreciate that.
What will you focus on over the next six months?
Reporting will get a lot of attention in next six months. Axiom’s strength is the volume of integrated information it contains and its ability to support a range of reporting needs. As we further develop reporting, the Budget Center will become more efficient and responsive.
Grants will be another major focus, using Axiom to support a more systematic approach to post-award financial management. This is a challenging project. There are a lot of idiosyncrasies in grants and we’re introducing an approach that, as far as we can tell, is new to higher education. We don’t see this happening at Harvard or MIT. We have started a pilot with Neuroscience in the Medical School. We will take the time required to ensure the success of this rollout before we move on to another department.
Just as significantly, we’ll be developing a more uniform approach to working with program managers. We’ll be further defining what information we need from them, what information they need from us, and when and how those exchanges will happen.
It’s been one year since you were appointed senior director and nearly three years since you started working on TEAM. What are your thoughts on the project from this vantage point?
The university is going through an enormous amount of change: rolling out a new budget system, developing the program manager model, orienting new staff, establishing Tableau as the reporting platform, and implementing numerous initiatives in technology, research structure and systems, and Tufts Support Services. All of this is going on at once.
I think Tufts’ leaders were smart in trying to do this all at once because there are so many connections among administrative areas and the most efficient solutions required a coordinated approach. That said, there are a lot of balls in the air at one time. There will be glitches and there will be frustration. All of this is in transition and will stabilize over the next year. We appreciate the community and its patience as we move to a new model.