The SEM plan enrollment projection is critical to long term forecasting, and these targets have been incorporated into each of the remaining fund groups. This drives everything - housing and dining revenues, student activities revenues, etc. as well as the associated costs of operations. We also rely on estimates for future enrollment headcount and FTE, tuition and fee rates, staff and faculty headcount and FTE, and finally wage-and-benefit rates. These forecasts assume growth, but with minimal additional funding for institutional overhead. There are modest inflationary estimates in some cases, particularly where there has been volatility (medical insurance and utilities, for instance). Local General Funds Local general funds are probably the most difficult to project over the next six years due to the significant diversity of activity. Incorporating student headcount growth into fee revenue assumptions, as well as wage-and-benefit increases, can get us part of the way there, but there are also two new activities that might make this fund group behave differently in the future – aviation flight operations and the Sammamish site. Major risks to this fund group are total student enrollment and, more specifically, summer instruction enrollment which is used to supplement core instructional activities; however, generally speaking we should be able to scale operations up or down depending on enrollment, and have the latitude to change fees as necessary. Another factor that can contribute to volatility in this fund group is the fact that our institutional investments are accounted for here, so any unrealized gains or losses on our portfolio can have an impact, as it did in FY 2018. Local General Funds FY16 – FY25
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