The reviews will be led by third-party consulting firm KPMG — with direct costs paid for by the Ministry of Colleges and Universities — and are intended to provide the University with new, expert perspectives that can be used to identify actions institutions can take to increase revenue-generating opportunities and drive long-term cost savings.

Brock has completed its procurement process and has retained consulting firm KPMG to co-ordinate the reviews of the following areas mandated by the Province’s Efficiency and Accountability Fund’s Guidelines and Reporting Requirements: university governance, administrative and student services, academic programming, physical assets and facilities, collaborative procurement opportunities, and revenue-generating opportunities.

Like most universities in Ontario, Brock has endured increasing financial pressures for many years due to factors outside its control. These include:

• Base operating grants to universities from the province have been declining as a proportion of our revenue for decades. Today they represent 25.5 per cent of Brock’s revenue, down from 33.4 per cent in 2013-14 and 42 per cent in 2004-05.
• Operating grants were frozen in 2006-07, which according to the Council of Ontario Universities means a decline of 31 per cent after accounting for inflation. Ontario universities already receive the lowest operating grant per full-time equivalent student of any province.
• In 2017, the province also restricted enrolment growth with the establishment of the corridor model. This means that if we take in more students than our allotment, those students are not included in funding received from the government.
• In 2019, the provincial government cut tuition rates by 10 per cent and has frozen them at that level. This immediately eliminated $15.4 million (approximately 5 per cent) of Brock’s budget. This tuition cut and freeze has effectively taken us back to 2014 rates.
• Several years of compensation restraint under Bill 124 has increased the pressure on employers to reach salary settlements that keep us competitive in the labour market and, coupled with the impact of global inflation, is resulting in higher compensation costs to the institution.

Brock is not alone in experiencing financial pressures. A number of other institutions — including Queen’s University, Guelph University, Wilfrid Laurier and Waterloo — have all indicated that, like Brock, they are facing historic budget shortfalls.