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UNCG: News from the Network - Dealing with Cutbacks

Arkansas – Cultivating Partnerships

The University of Arkansas’s Center for Public Collaboration is cultivating partnerships where they can work in collaboration with others with limited budgets to accomplish mutual goals. For example, the Center is planning a series of public issue forums in partnership with the Clinton Library Archive, the Clinton School of Public Service, the Tri-County Rural Health Network, and the University of Central Arkansas (UCA) Community Development Institute. They are also in the planning stages of offering collaboration training to local government economic development folks through UCA's Community Development Institute.

California – Seeking Recession-resistant Projects

California State University’s Center for Collaborative Policy in Sacramento realized that projects supported by the state's general fund would not be a stable source of revenue. So, the Center pursued work outside of the state's general fund - projects supported by bonds, self-supporting fees,special programs established by voter initiative and programs that would be recession-resistant , for example emergency services and public utility work.They are moving more and more to work with federal agencies and projects funded with federal dollars. They strongly encourage other programs to pursue emergency services work at the state level, which issupported largely by federal pass-through funds. They currently have a number of contracts with the state in this area. It is an area that desperately needs collaborative policy services and has secure money.

Another strategy has been to partner withprivate sectorengineering and other technical firmsbidding for public sector work,the Center serves as a sub-contractor. The Center is selective about the firms with whom they partner and the projects they are pursuing. The stakeholder process and civic engagement piece of the project has to be real andacknowledgedas an important piece of the project. They turn down partnerships if the collaborative policy work is "window dressing" or if the firm is not committed to genuine collaborative approaches.The other protection the Center builds into these cooperative ventures with private sector firms is a "Teaming Agreement," which spells out the Center’s rights and responsibilities to the clients and stakeholders.

Florida – Shifting to a More Diverse Revenue Stream

Florida State University’s FCRC Consensus Center (formerly the Florida Conflict Resolution Consortium) undertook a complete review of their past and current projects and "clients" and created a goal of scouring the landscape and seeking "mission central" projects that would allow them to shift their heavy reliance on state agency funding and rely instead on a more diverse revenue stream from federal, foundation, private sector and local revenue sources.  The Center set a goal of shifting their mix to seek at least 50% state and 50% other in FY 2008. Presently at the end of FY 2008 they have been able to shift their project revenue in this fiscal year to about 1/3 federal, 1/3 private, 1/3 local and 1/3 state revenues (from 2/3 state agency funding and 1/3 local and other revenue sources in FY 2007).

The Center was able to get a legislative recurring funding line in 2006 with their State University Board of Governors and then proposed and implemented projects on areas consistent with their mission and competency where they felt they could make a contribution: e.g. improving campus master planning with local governments through facilitating a negotiated rule making committee and conducting a system-wide study of the state of university engagement with communities and regions in the state including the concept of collaborative governance. They are currently seeking to preserve this line in an exceedingly challenging budget year.

Massachusetts – Broadening Services to Users Who Already Know and Trust MODR

The Massachusetts Office of Dispute Resolution and Public Collaboration at UMASS Boston is concentrating on building their existing contracts and relationships to garner more fee-for-service work.  In the case of state agencies they’ve worked with in the past, they are working to expand the kinds of services they provide them – adding public process assistance, program evaluation, and process evaluation. MODR is also being more selective about which cases they take to avoid those that require too much uncompensated preparation. MODR is also trying to do “wiser budgeting” by capturing the real operating costs to the program when they budget for projects and building in a margin in their fees.

New Mexico – Taking on Projects to Raise Visibility

The University of New Mexico’s Consortium for Collaborative Governance has embarked on two public dialogue projects, one to improve the state’s system for adjudicating water rights and the other to assist the Department of Aging and Long Term Services in implementing strategies for helping elders meet quality of life standards. As a new program, they are putting emphasis on projects that will help get their name and purpose more widely known. The Consortium points out that funding for the water dialogue project comes from a water projects fund managed by the New Mexico state court’s administrative office. The Consortium has begun working on a partnership with a health policy center at UNM that will enable graduate students to be involved with a practicum on Consortium projects, and is talking with other campus and off-campus entities about collaborations on public dialogues, particularly in education.

North Carolina – Restructuring Programs

North Carolina State University’s Natural Resources Leadership Institute has been fortunate this year to have received foundation grants from two important corporate donors that have supported them over the years, which has enabled the Institute to plug budget holes and continue their program offerings. They plan to seek funding from our corporate partners again next year.  Their second strategy is to reconsider how they structure their training programs. They expect travel budgets to be as tight or tighter next fiscal year. As an alternative to their typical 3-day workshop format, they may offer one-day regional workshops where people can attend the training sessions, but not have to pay for lodging and meals. Because their standard leadership program spans approximately 120 contact hours over the 18-month program cycle, they will have to reduce the program content and lengthen the program cycle to accommodate the single-day workshop schedule. This remains a working model, but is one method that they are considering to keep the program running while reducing the costs to their participants so they can continue to receive participant tuition, which they depend on for funding the Institute.

Oregon – Seeking Projects Strategically and Building Connections Within the University System

Oregon Solutions at Portland State University is targeting their strategy in the following ways:

  1. Identifying key projects that have major political support, and offering to provide collaborative support. In Oregon’s case, that includes renewable energy projects as a way of helping counties develop economically, and forest health projects to provide jobs in rural Oregon.
  2. Offering to help communities prepare for federal (and state) stimulus funding, through collaboration. There are 5-10 OS projects set up to receive stimulus funding, because they are more “shovel-ready” due to the collaborative process.
  3. Emphasize the ability for collaboration to “leverage” scarce public resources and to “accelerate” projects for implementation when talking to decision-makers in the state.
  4.  Demonstrate important connections that projects create within the university community by engaging faculty, staff, and students. Oregon Solutions (OS) and the Oregon Consensus (OC) program are offering to serve as venues for real-world experience to demonstrate that they contribute to both the research and teaching missions of PSU alongside public service.  Along with PSU’s Conflict Resolution Program and the University of Oregon's Appropriate Dispute Resolution Center, OS and OC have created a joint practicum / internship program that provides students with orientation and placement on OS and OC projects and cases.

Texas – Exploring Diverse Sources

The Center for Public Policy Dispute Resolution at the University of Texas Austin is paying particular attention to opportunities for training and partnering. As reductions in staff continue, organizations and governmental entities see stress in the workplace rise, and at least one county office is taking this time to be proactive in seeking conflict management training for its personnel. The Center is helping that office customize a conflict management training to help the staff deal with internal workplace issues as well as external customer service. The Center is also spending more time talking with various like-minded university resources at UT and other campuses about possible opportunities of working together on projects. They are also visiting with professors and students about stimulus grant opportunities where collaborative and dispute resolution processes may play a role upstream as well as downstream. Consistent with President Obama’s initiative to make the federal government more open and transparent, the Center is also vigilant to promote that initiative on the state level and in particular where federal and state entities need to work together.

Virginia – Providing Services to Another University

University of Virginia’s Institute for Environmental Negotiation has contracted with another university (George Mason University) to provide services that include developing courses and a certificate program and teaching.  In addition, they have secured a three year promise of funds from the Dean of the School of Architecture at UVA to help sustain their efforts.  IEN also is getting low-cost consulting assistance from a team of graduate business students who are examining the Institute’s practices to develop a business strategy for the Institute.