Attendees: 

Kevin Amende, Kristin Blackler, Madison Boone, Sarah Coletta Flynn, Paul Edlund, Duke Elliott, Nicholas Fitzmaurice, Susan Gallagher, Julia Haggerty, EJ Hook, Jill Klinger, Paul Lachapelle, Kara Landolfi, BB Lenovo, Jared Leonard, Matthew Madsen, Anna Martinson, Candace Mastel, Natalie Meyer, Logun Norris, Justin Pennel, Chancey Ringer, Daniel Sandberg, Mary Stein, Megan Sterl, Steve Swinford, Terry Leist, Christine Upton

Call to Order and Approval of previous minutes

Informational Items

Presentation in University Budget, VP Terry Leist – Presentation available by request

  • Processes for budgeting and how that works at state and campus level
    • How much will it cost us to operate next biennium doing what we’re doing now
    • Estimates for utilities, leases, salary increases, etc.
    • Legislature can take it, leave it, change it, do with it whatever they want
    • Will typically work with Governor and a lot of it will stay in place
    • Begins with legislature
    • Budget office submits things through Commissioner’s Office to go into Governor’s budget during Spring of even numbered years
    • University System submitted budget to Governor Bullock and then Governor Gianforte – has already changed twice from what was originally submitted
    • Different components at state level – general operations bill, pay plan bill, two parts to capital piece, long range building process
    • For University System, except for projects funded through long range building process, rest of it comes to University System as a loan and find way to allocate to campuses
  • When it gets to MSU
    • Have done a lot of good things based on opportunity – example – Romney Oval
    • Not yet – bits and pieces of things, trying to formalize that
    • Total money bringing in for FY20 for all MSU - $780M
    • MSU’s portion is $624M
      • Plant funds - $84M
      • Restricted funds - $136M
      • Net General Operating Funds - $220M
      • Designated funds - $83M
      • Auxiliary Funds - $65M
      • Loan Funds - $420k
      • Tuition Waivers - $32M
      • Endowment Funds – $1.4k
    • General fund - $220M
      • Net tuition and fees - $145M
      • General fund and millage - $71M
      • Non-mandatory transfers-in - $1.6M
      • Other revenue - $2.1M
    • Enrollment
      • Steadily increasing percentage of non-resident students coming in between FY16-FY20
    • Origin of resident students
      • Gallatin and Yellowstone County are two largest
    • In country
      • California, Washington, Alaska, Minnesota, Illinois, northeast
    • Amount of funding per resident student
      • Getting subsidized from the state ~$9000 per student in state
      • Number is below the average, trying to bring it up
    • General Operations
      • Salary and wages - $124M
      • Utilities - $3M
      • Other operating expenses - $15M
      • Instruction - $113M – steadily increasing this and academic support ($27M)
      • Facilities - $25M
      • Institutional Support - $18M
    • Debt Service
      • Most tied up into dining and housing operations
      • Some have been refinanced – don’t all align with exact projects
      • Stepdown function – as time goes on have less and less bond obligations – issue new debt for new things in the future
    • Questions
      • State statutes – constitution provides authority to MUS to Board from Regents – but if it’s a structure on campus it has to go through the legislature – it takes time
      • Only a capacity to put a certain number of things on the list each year – have eight campuses – jockeying for the ability to get it on the list – subject to Governor changing the list too
      • Have to demonstrate importance, if can go through Board of Regents may be quicker but still a process
      • Foundation will work with anyone on ideas
      • Still a process – has to be approved even if you have the money
      • Don’t know if there is anyone one person doing that full-time
      • Something that CSAC could take up – coordinating committee to see what’s happening on campus and serve as point of contact
      • As part of budget council assess those
      • Have funded a number of initiatives and projects over past 8-9 years; give them 2 years to get going; ask some of them to come back and report out on how it’s going
      • Most of them have been in academic and student success arena
      • A few things that have come through focused on sustainability in that process – electronic document management; composting pilot project;
      • How can we possibly do anything if it takes 4-5 legislative cycles to get things passed; is there no other way to do things, what opportunities are we missing to be strategic?
      • From the Foundation side, new initiative at University of Oregon to establish new environmental and racial justice institute, received funding from private foundation; any similar things on campus in terms of pursuing private foundation funding for things like sustainability
      • Asking each of units to come back with innovative proposals on budgeting – any gems that have come out of that process? About how to think a little bit differently
    • In middle of the process right now
    • Take new money they have and ask all units to provide a 2% reallocation – add any new money they have from tuition
    • Also ask units to send ideas for reinvesting
    • How to incorporate more robust capital planning process at campus level? What long-term things do we need to think about?
    • Is there actually a capital improvement plan that people could put their hands on, like a public document?
    • Financial overview

 

Presentation on MSU’s Electricity Procurement from Northwestern Energy, Megan Sterl and Duke Elliot

  • University Services – Megan oversees Engineering and Utilities part of this
  • Utility portfolio by cost
    • Electric Total – 54%
    • Natural Gas (Tier 1 and Tier 2) – 22%
    • Natural Gas Firm – 4%
    • Water + Sewer – 20%
  • Campus electricity supply
    • 65% of energy is coming from Northwestern, 32% from WAPA Hydro, small portions generated on campus
    • Overlaying circle in middle – shows Northwestern portfolio overlaid with MSU’s portfolio – 75% of current used utilities on campus are low-carbon
    • Noteworthy to highlight WAPA purchase agreement – in unique position nationally
  • Campus electric distribution map
  • Electric suppliers
    • Means we can get power from two separate ways – one by being traditional retail customer, other part is choice part – getting supplied by WAPA and distribution by Northwestern
    • Per laws and rules, no changes to this mix can be made after 2007
    • Heating plant has cogeneration currently
    • MSU photovoltaic
      • One of the challenges with PV is where to put those – promising areas are parking lots but challenge of how to deal with snow
      • Have ruled out rooftop spaces
      • Cost-benefit of PV has been improving in recent years
    • Natural gas supply
      • Contract through the state with Shell Gas – distributed by Northwestern Energy
      • Tier 1 and Tier 2 gas is most of what is coming into heating plant
      • Tier 2 represents some labs and more specific equipment
      • Also buying natural gas as a retail customer
    • MSU’s strategy
      • Reducing energy use
      • Reclaiming energy
      • Integrating renewable energy and systems
      • Clarification on natural gas
        • Gas going directly into facilities? Tier 1 – directly going into the heating plant, consider it steam on campus
        • Gas distributed throughout campus is pretty in comparison
      • Are we bought into that gas for a longer period of time?
        • Depends on the building; every building has a strategy that is appropriate for it
      • PV is behind the meter, but still being captured and reported – do they have separate meters, how do those work?
        • Sub-metering on campus – provide additional information – some of that are PV installations, co-generation on campus – to get idea of total usage on campus
      • What can we do to up that future planned number of 70kW and look at available land, solar-ready options?
        • Have done extensive evaluation on roof mounted portion, a little bit on ground mounted – want to work with a consultant on that
        • A few different ways
          • Building energy use – can share that with everyone
          • Looking at the pie chart and determining what to go after with energy efficiency
        • A lot of effort also spent on maintaining systems and making sure they work as efficiently as possible
        • Energy use trends have been a downward in energy use, but upward trend in square footage of buildings, hours of operation, number of students
        • Flat energy usage over last few years – good thing given how much we have grown
        • Have a good handle on how we see future of low carbon and how to get there – if money weren’t a factor technology is there to be able to do that today
        • Don’t have geothermal in there yet but eventually will – in carbon reduction component
        • Carbon emission reduction – a million pounds per year
        • Have to take into consideration not only capital but also who owns land on campus, future buildings
        • Has there been an inventory done on potential gradient with ground mount, surface systems?
        • Do you have a list of highest energy consumption, top electrical uses to look at, how to make those more energy efficient?
        • What is the trend in consumption over time? More efficient, doing more with less?
        • New geothermal system – what percentage of energy was that going to make up for campus?
        • Have learned from every project on campus and improving from those
      • Committed to low carbon future on campus
      • Addressing supply and demand by:
      • Questions
    • Of the part we are purchasing, two main suppliers are Northwestern Energy and Western Area Power Administration (WAPA)
    • Quasi-choice customer since 2007
    • Electric on-site generation
  • Emissions reductions planning on campus
    • Next thing that Terry needs is whether it’s electrical/gas side of things or other areas – needs more information to be able to assess
    • Then looking at how we can get there and put in some cost estimates before putting together written commitment
    • Overall – look at these areas and get some groundwork done so Terry can understand it better to help guide how we can move forward and what a timeline might look like
    • Don’t want to get to point of saying this is what we want to do but having no real clear actions to accomplish those
    • Especially given current budget environment
    • Council can embark on social learning efforts and supporting Kristin in some of these technical deep dives

Emissions Reductions Planning

  • Emissions reductions planning on campus
    • Next thing that Terry needs is whether it’s electrical/gas side of things or other areas – needs more information to be able to assess
    • Then looking at how we can get there and put in some cost estimates before putting together written commitment
    • Overall – look at these areas and get some groundwork done so Terry can understand it better to help guide how we can move forward and what a timeline might look like
  • Don’t want to get to point of saying this is what we want to do but having no real clear actions to accomplish those
    • Especially given current budget environment
  • Council can embark on social learning efforts and supporting Kristin in some of these technical deep dives
  • Can’t formally embark on developing climate action plan at this point
  • If we come out of legislative session even consider that a win
  • A lot of uncertainty right now with economics, enrollment
  • What kinds of deep dives does Kristin want to do?
    • Policy barriers, technological barriers, economic barriers
    • What is our target data, what is the funding level to get there?
    • Work with a small group of technical experts to perform an analysis of what’s possible, then run financial analysis
    • Greenhouse gas emissions is only one sector too
  • A lot of this is education
    • A lot of good examples across the country to look to as well – for example, Utah State University

 

CSAC member news and announcements

  • Dan Sandberg – grant funding - https://www.montana.edu/csac/funding-requests.html
    • Have about half of our grant funding left to give out – advertised both large and small grant opportunities
    • Major projects grant deadline is February 15
    • Small grants are ongoing
  • Selena Ahemd webinar – Just Sustainabilities
    • Upcoming Webinar: Wednesday, January 27th at 1pm PST / 2pm MST / 4pm EST for a webinar led by Professor Julian Agyeman, Professor of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning at Tufts University on "JUST SUSTAINABILITES IN POLICY, PLANNING, AND PRACTICE".
  • Continue to post on Sustainability list-serve!
  • How can this council help amplify and accelerate efforts to link students with research efforts?
    • Have off-schedule meeting in coming weeks to talk more about this
  • Dan Sandberg – groom small Nordic track and offer free ski rentals, doing avalanche rescue park on campus, running some ice-skating clinics as well

Public comment

Adjournment