Dear SPH faculty, staff and Ph.D. candidates,

Following up on the University’s communication on March 13th instituting a freeze on non-essential travel, a temporary freeze on staff hiring, and a request to reduce, slow or defer discretionary spending, I am sharing guidance on how this will be achieved at the School of Public Health. 

We are managing spending more aggressively now to preserve the school’s core mission of education, research and the translation of knowledge to benefit human health here in the U.S. and around the world. We have to ensure our ability to continue those activities in the face of potential financial impacts from increases in endowment taxes, cuts in federal funding, and/or decreases in tuition revenue.  

Our immediate financial goal is to reduce spending without undermining those core activities or creating an onerous review process. As always, we will depend on all community members to help meet this goal because you know your work the best. It is our hope that this guidance can help minimize disruption to your everyday operations while ensuring that critical areas of research and education continue.  

Below, we provide guidance on how the school will implement these financial requirements. We have tried to be comprehensive in what we have outlined. Please let us know if there are additional expense scenarios we can clarify, and we will update the guidance. As we monitor expenses, it may be necessary to make further adjustments. However, we fully expect to see significantly reduced expenses based on the guidelines below, and we appreciate your help in achieving these savings. 

We recognize that some plans are already in place and contracts signed. Where possible, we ask that units modify spending or planning but understand that some near-term plans or trips have expenses that cannot be refunded, or it would cause reputational or organizational concerns to change. 

In general, we believe that our faculty and staff are best situated to determine which activities are essential to our mission and which ones are not. Therefore, we plan to keep the number of instances where pre-approvals are required to a minimum. If the financial situation changes, or if the level of discretionary spending does not meaningfully decrease, we may need to require pre-approvals for more spending activities.

Expenses Requiring Senior Officer Exception Approval

We will not approve any expense above the standard spending guidelines. 

Discretionary Spending:

Discretionary spending is any non-personnel, non-travel expenses from departmental and center budgets, faculty funds, endowments or gifts. It does not refer to spending from research grants, which have very strict spending guidelines. Examples include, but are not limited to, food at events, business meals, office supplies and furniture. Decreasing discretionary spending is the easiest method we have to make a meaningful impact in lowering our financial expenditures while continuing to advance our core mission activities. 

Events

We ask that all departments review upcoming events and activities and determine where expenses can be significantly reduced. 

• If your department has regular departmental events with food, we ask that you significantly reduce the events with food, or the costs of the food offered. We also ask that you reduce the frequency of these events where appropriate.
• Food for classes will no longer be reimbursed. 
• If you intend to fly in any speakers or guests for departmental or center events, we ask that you explore a virtual option for the event if the travel is not already scheduled.

Events are an important educational and community-building resource for our school and you should continue to use them strategically. For example, our Food Truck Lunch and Dean’s Awards Ceremony will continue as planned as vendor contracts were already secured and they are important school events. However, our SPH Events team has already canceled or postponed other events that were still in the planning stages and could still be effective at a later day. 

Business Meals

Business meals will generally not be reimbursed unless they are with an outside speaker or business partner. Outside vendors and/or meals will not be approved for team-building or strategy events. We recommend looking at internal options and internal catering as less expensive alternatives. 

We require pre-approval for any outside speaker dinners. Please limit the number of people, other than the speaker and their guests, at this event to no more than three (3) Brown community members, as opposed to the normal six (6) allowed in university policy. 

Office Supplies

Office supplies must be ordered through your department’s operations team during this time; no personal purchases will be reimbursed. We will not provide funding for general office snacks, but we will maintain the coffee throughout the building. We will strictly enforce our existing requirements that any IT purchases require pre-approval and coordination with our internal IT team. This includes IT peripherals.

Furniture or Facilities Costs

Furniture or facilities costs will be limited to high-traffic student-facing area improvements or safety concerns. All other requests and projects impacting individual offices will be deferred. We will continue planning for renovations of 155 S. Main Street with the University. 

Travel

We have been asked to freeze non-essential travel not funded by a grant. The Provost's announcement does not define “essential,” and the definition might change depending on your field of study. As a general rule, please prioritize your travel to what is essential to delivering education to our students and supporting our faculty research. 

We are providing some specific guidance below that will apply to all travel while you look at prioritizing what is deemed essential or cannot be deferred:

• We will require pre-approval for all international travel not funded by research grants. International travel can be expensive, and we want to ensure the expenses will be reimbursed before they are incurred by the faculty or staff. International per-diem will not be reimbursed during this time period. Instead, travelers should submit their individual receipts for reimbursement according to University policy.
• We will require pre-approval for any student travel: We want to ensure that students' travel expenses will be reimbursed before they incur them. 
• Often, people book travel to coincide with vacations or extended trips. While we understand this may occur for essential travel you may have, increased scrutiny will be applied, so if you have any questions relating to this, please ask in advance. 
• Any administrative department travel will require pre-approval. (Dean’s Office, Academic Dean’s Office, Finance and Administration, Communications and Events, Advancement, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Education)
• Any sabbatical trips where you expect reimbursement that extend beyond 14 days will require pre-approval.

Requests for pre-approval should be sent to your core lead, who will then submit them to Finance and Administration leadership. Executive Dean Sara Walsh will review and respond to pre-approval requests in a timely manner. When appropriate, the relative Chair or Academic Dean will be consulted.

We also recognize that many in the community may be concerned by reports of federal deportation actions related to travel. We encourage you to review the message and resources provided by Executive Vice President Russell Carey.  

Hiring

As was stated in the message last week, the University has implemented an immediate temporary hiring freeze. The SPH Human Resources team is working with University Human Resources and will be in contact with SPH hiring managers with open positions in the coming days.

In closing, we understand that these uncertain times and rapid changes in guidance and approach can be disconcerting for many in our community. We hope this guidance will help to clarify and reassure you of our steadfast commitment to our mission, explain our current situation, outline our approach to securing our financial future and help all of us navigate the challenges ahead. Thank you for all you do for our school, Brown, and public health. It will be because of our collective dedication to education, research and financial stewardship that we will navigate these times together and emerge stronger.

Sincerely,

Sara Walsh
Executive Dean of Finance and Administration