The game of Taboo troubles gamers to describe a word for their staff users to guess, but strikes particular phrases from the record of clues that could be applied.
For illustration, you could possibly be questioned to explain the phrase “circle” with no making use of the words spherical, arc, circumference, or diameter. A eager ear from the other group will, of class, consider to capture you in the disqualifying act of making use of one of the taboo phrases as you race versus the clock.
As Waubonsee’s senior finance formal, I feel just one of the most crucial things I can — and should really — do is help stakeholders fully grasp the college’s economic wellness and circumstances. I do not like to do this with heaps of charts and numbers, but alternatively with some pretty primary and uncomplicated ideas.
Believe of this like finance or accounting for the non-main or, improved yet, like a game of Taboo, where by I get to reveal finance and accounting things but can not use figures or dollar indications.
I like to describe the economical health and fitness of any organization or corporation, Waubonsee bundled, first from the “equilibrium sheet” point of view. This report quantifies and lists what the faculty owns (belongings) and what it owes to other folks (liabilities). The college’s harmony sheet has benefited from a record of powerful monetary administration tactics and choice-earning. Our property incorporate:
• Beautiful campuses and buildings
• Point out-of-the-art instructional products
• Liquidity to fork out our charges
• Lengthy-phrase investments to make certain ongoing viability.

























Our liabilities exist mainly as bonds, which we have bought to buyers over the yrs to finance our development and reworking assignments, incredibly equivalent to the mortgages house owners normally have. When we subtract what we owe from what we have, we refer to the difference as “internet posture.”
The next assertion of great importance for the untrained eye is the “income statement.” It quantifies and lists what the university receives (revenues) and what it spends (bills). The most prominent profits sources for Illinois group colleges are tuition, community residence taxes, and point out assistance.
Expenditures incorporate salaries, benefits, tuition waivers, and fairly substantially everything we obtain — personal computers, educational equipment, books, provides, etcetera.
In the corporate earth, the big difference between revenues and expenses would be known as a income or loss. As a nonprofit organization, while, “gains” do not get distributed to shareholders, but rather get extra to our belongings at the stop of the calendar year. This means that in its place of earnings or reduction, we refer to the change involving our revenues and expenditures as “change in net placement.”
Waubonsee Group Higher education is accountable to a lot of stakeholders:
• The board of trustees, elected by our district inhabitants to be responsible stewards of their tax bucks.
• Pupils who entrust their tuition pounds to us with an expectation of a substantial-top quality education and learning.
• Workers who count on us to guidance them and the significant-good quality companies they give to our learners and the community.
From a economical overall health standpoint, how do we know how we are carrying out? I am going to crack the “no figures” recreation rule here to describe two steps of distinct value: the general public Composite Monetary Index (CFI) and our Bond Score, both of which collapse dozens and dozens of monetary metrics into simplified, aggregated scores.
Our accrediting company, the Greater Learning Fee, requires us to report our CFI each and every yr. On a scale that ranges from -4 to +10, Waubonsee’s most current score was 6.6 and has been on a normal upward development for the last 10 years.
Our bond ranking agencies use a letter-dependent grading scale. Akin to an educational quality scale, A-amount rankings are the greatest, but the rating companies have several amounts for every single letter. With a ranking of AA+, Waubonsee’s creditworthiness is just one particular notch shy of the best probable score of AAA. The principal monetary variable within just our command to inevitably achieve the AAA rating would be to more maximize the balances of our personal savings accounts (our offer of hard cash and extensive-term financial commitment balances).
Even ahead of the pandemic, the larger education sector was encountering a gradual but regular drop in enrollments nationwide. Recognizing the relevance of tuition as a person of the three major profits sources on our profits statement, a detrimental base line, or in other text, a reduction in internet situation operates the risk of eroding the college’s economic power.
Appropriately, we constantly monitor equally enrollments and tuition costs.
In gentle of the pandemic, while, we have been in a position to leverage the college’s financial power to gain equally our pupils and our taxpayers. Previous semester, the university funded two scholarship applications, a Spring Forward scholarship of $40 per credit history hour for every single registered pupil, and an application-dependent Pandemic Reduction Scholarship.
In addition to practically $3,000,000 in discounts for students offered by these two courses, the board endorsed keeping a level tuition and fees level for the academic year 2021-2022. And our district taxpayers just lately received their assets tax bills, which replicate a lessen in the Group Higher education District 516 depth line.
Although the quantities of those reductions differ primarily based on house values, the aggregated discounts to district taxpayers was nearly $9,000,000.
We will continue on to work with all of our stakeholders to maintain and strengthen the college’s economical footing even though supplying superb instruction and services to our learners and the district.
Even nevertheless I may well have bent the Taboo recreation principles a little bit, basically try to remember the college’s economical standing is seem. We are perfectly-positioned to carry on serving our learners and our group mainly because we diligently control our annual revenues and expenditures.
• Doug Minter is Vice President of Finance and Administration at Waubonsee Local community University in Sugar Grove.