Darren Swain, Budget Center Assistant Director for the School of Dental Medicine Portfolio
Darren joined Tufts in May of 2013 as the budget and fiscal officer (BFO) for the School of Dental Medicine. Before joining Tufts, he spent 10 years at Raytheon Corporation supporting multiple product development teams, as well Finance and Planning. In addition, he spent three years at Physical Optics Corporation, a privately owned grant-funded, research and development firm.
How would you describe your role as a Budget Center director?
Within the Budget Center, we’re working on changing the culture of the way the school manages budgets and provides information to its customers. My job is to streamline the process and make budgeting a transparent and collaborative effort.
How is the Budget Center changing the way Tufts manages budgets?
We were looking at a lack of uniformity across schools and the university. Each school had varying levels of support; some got more support, some got less. We had pretty good processes within the Dental School but within Finance, we recognized the need to standardize administrative processes and get rid of paper functions. The Budget Center will help make sure budgeting is done the same way in every department.
Is the Dental School budget unique from other schools’ budgets, and if so how?
We’re not only an educational facility but also a health care provider with 300 dental chairs and 900 dental students. The school is involved in everything you would come across in the private sector. We have multiple clinics that support both undergraduate and post-graduate education. In total, the school manages more than 25 different clinics — in the dental school and a number of off-site clinics. The clinic component is a $30-million business. This adds a level of complexity in how we project and manage the budget, as well as how we get financial information out to our stakeholders.
Has joining the Budget Center changed the way you work with people at the Dental School?
I still work with a lot of the same people who were responsible for budgets before the Budget Center opened. The Dental School had a lot of senior-level recruitment in past two years but most of that is behind us. The school is now in the process of optimizing operational efficiencies in its teaching and clinical operations. I’m hopeful that the tools and systems we’re implementing within the Budget Center will enhance the way the school leverages its operations.
What opportunities do you see?
From a Budget Center standpoint, one opportunity is moving to an integrated system that we can leverage to change the way we support financial decision making at Tufts. That and the reporting tool, Tableau. There is an enormous amount of granular data within the clinics. We may be able to create reports in Tableau to give the Dental School a more detailed picture of how certain variables affect its clinics’ performance.
What do you hope to accomplish in the next six months?
One of the most important things we’re doing in this first year is building trust in the new organization. We need to demonstrate that the level of service from the Budget Center is equal to or greater than what was provided before. At the same time we will be working to expand our reporting capability and identify new ways to communicate and distribute information on financial performance to our customers, both on the traditional school functions, as well as clinical functions.