Office of the Assemblies

Dear Matthew,

Thank you for transmitting UA Resolution #5, "Creating an Ad Hoc Budget Planning Advisory Committee.” I appreciate the assembly’s consideration of confidentiality during this trial period of the ad-hoc committee and your plan to structure your agendas for these meetings accordingly.

Regarding the resolution’s language on the development of a Cornell Budget User’s Guide, I agree with the assembly that greater transparency around the university’s budget would be very helpful to members of our community. The Division of Financial Affairs (DFA) is already at work on an interactive financial tutorial that I believe will serve this purpose. Rather than having the DFA work with the UA on a duplicative process, I would suggest that the DFA reach out to the ad-hoc committee and walk them through the tutorial. We would welcome their thoughts about the presentation and about how best to make the tutorial available more broadly to our community.

Thank you again for sharing the resolution.

Sincerely,

Martha Pollack

Martha E. Pollack

President, Cornell University

300 Day Hall

Ithaca, NY 14853

Tel: 607-255-5201

www.cornell.edu