Ten-year experience with mission-based budgeting in the faculty of medicine of Dalhousie University

Abstract

The Faculty of Medicine of Dalhousie University (the Faculty) has applied a mission-based approach to the allocation of the academic budget since 1993. Over the ensuing decade, large shifts in budgets to academic departments have been effected, and two goals that required special emphasis-the successful implementation of a tutorial-based undergraduate medical curriculum and an increase in research activity-have been achieved. This has occurred despite significant reductions in the overall academic budget over the ten-year period. The budgeting process provided the Faculty with a tangible means of supporting its mission and also gave each department a transparent report of its relative contribution to the overall mission of the Faculty, which helped instill pride. In some years, misunderstandings of the budget process arose because of confusion over the impact of the overall total academic budget reductions experienced by the Faculty in that year. This meant that recognition of a department's contribution resulted, in most instances, in a relatively smaller reduction in budget rather than a budget increase. Further misunderstandings have arisen because of confusion between mission-based and activity-based budgeting. This confusion was reinforced because the assessments of education outcomes were measurements of activity rather than of outcomes. However, these measures were chosen to be the best-available indirect measures of the desired educational outcome. After ten years, the fundamentals of the mission-based process introduced in 1993 remain unchanged as the basis for allocation of the academic budget for the Faculty.