Page 10 - RFCUNY-2010AnnualReport

tempted to surmise that, indeed, this was no “blip”. A word of caution however—much of the increase from 2009 to 2010 can be attributed to more than $51 million in federal stimulus fund-ing under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Those funds are a one-time, short-term source. It still remains to be seen—and final 2011 numbers along with early 2012 will be the real test—if we are on a sustainable growth curve. Whether with one-shot funding or not, our PIs are enjoying tremendous success and they bring distinction to the University. In 2011 we began to be affected by the fiscal difficulties confronting New York City and New York State. Mid-year cuts in contracts with various State agencies and the wholesale cancellation of one major City contract, requiring the termination of several dozen field staff, took place. What happened in 2011 is likely a harbinger of more to come in 2012, as local governments triage their spending priorities.

In addition to our core services of payroll, purchasing, accounting, compliance, etc., programs initiated in prior years continue to address a variety of PI and employee needs, as well as insti tutional imperatives. These include REAP, our highly successful program of tuition reimburse-ment that, since inception in 2005, has issued nearly 400 payments; grant-writing workshops for doctoral students; the COS database of sponsored program opportunities; and training sessions for the High Performance Computing Center at the College of Staten Island.

Last year, we successfully negotiated favorable federal overhead rates for the long-form schools. This year we submitted proposed rates for the short-form schools. Negotiations take place with DHHS, our cognizant federal agency.

Projects of Note

Kuali Through an ongoing pilot project at Central Office, the Foundation is gaining valuable knowledge about the Kuali financial systems. Kuali is an open source series of modules designed by colleges for colleges. The Foundation has been evaluating Kuali as a potential successor to our legacy systems. Those systems have served us well, but they have already reached the end of their useful lives. In order to best serve our PIs and employees, we need to make a decision by 2012 as to whether Kuali is the way to go, or if we need to look to commercial vendors. Kuali’s advantage is in its focus on university needs and the community of resources available to address RF-specific business processes. It is also a more cost-effective alternative to commer-cial products, which require massive initial investments of time and money, along with substan-tial annual maintenance payments.

Planned Giving This past year, the Foundation received rulings that permit it to act on behalf of the colleges to offer Charitable Gift Annuities (CGAs). The Research Foundation sponsors this University-wide program, giving CUNY’s colleges the flexibility to offer gift annuities to alumni, faculty, donors and friends. With a CGA, a donor makes a gift and receives income from that gift at a contractual rate of return. Upon death, the funds revert to the designated college beneficiary. The program is approved by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service and state authorities in New York, Connecticut, Florida and Illinois. Additional states will be added and credit card acceptance is coming. As college fundraisers, and their donors, get better acquainted with this type of charita-ble gift, we expect the gift annuity program to grow considerably.