Water Fountains | Photo by Grace Ramsdell | The Wright State Guardian
The Wright State University (WSU) Board of Trustees met virtually at 9 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 23 to discuss monthly financial reports, investment reports and to approve expenditure contracts.
Director of University Fiscal Services Sommer Todd, and Director of Treasury Services Steven Sherbet, began the meeting by providing Trustees with finance reports, monthly cash flow reports and the committee reviewed year-to-date financial performances.
Depleting Reserves
While highlighting WSU monthly cash flow and investment balances, Sherbet pointed out that WSU is expecting to end the fiscal year 2021 with a reserve balance lower than that of previous fiscal years 2019 and 2020. This downward sloping trend was shown on a bar graph to Trustees, showing reserves of $113 million in August and sloping down to $66 million by June.
“We are projecting an ending balance of $66 million in reserves for fiscal year 21,” said Sherbet. “This is of course lower than that of fiscal year 20 where we ended at $84, and of fiscal year 19 where we ended at $72 million.”
Reserves are expected to be depleted quickly over the next six months, and the trend of depleting reserves continues into July, however, Sherbet did not have an exact estimate of July’s balance on hand.
“It will dip down once again in July, before starting to go back up in August once tuition receipts for the following year come in,” Sherbet said. “Somewhere in the high $50 million to low $60 million range, I would predict.”
Upon finishing the cash flow presentation, Sherbet began to discuss WSU investment balances.
Fund reallocation
“One thing I’d like to point out is that we are in a low-interest-rate environment, which means we aren’t getting much yield,” Sherbet said. “Because of this, last month in September we reallocated the daily income trust governmental portfolio of $7.4 million into two short-term bond funds, which are picking up a few more basis points.”
This reallocation of funds is an attempt by the university to make as much interest income as possible while remaining in a low-interest environment.
Contract approval
WSU Chief Operating Officer Greg Sample began discussed the approval of contracts in two different sections. First, contracts of $250,000 to $499,999 and second contracts of $150,000 to $249,999.
There was only one contract that needed to be taken to a vote.
This vote was for the spending of a $451,000 insurance refund check given to the university to repair roof damage and passed unanimously. This insurance money comes in the wake of storm damage to the Student Union pool roof in Dec. 2018, where WSU paid for initial repairs with a portion of the $3.75 million that was given in capital funding.
After the unanimous vote, Trustees exited the public session and moved to a private meeting for an executive session.
Executive sessions involve matters required to be kept confidential by federal law, regulations, or state statutes, personal matters including compensation and employment and lastly pending or imminent court action.
The committee was briefed that three items needed to be discussed in the executive session, and the public session was ended.
The next WSU Board of Trustees meeting is set to begin virtually at 8:30 a.m. on Thursday, Dec. 10.
