Lakehead’s financial health good

Lakehead University is in good financial health as it works toward a new strategic plan, the institute’s new board chairman stated on Tuesday.
“The fiscal health of the university is very sound,” Cam Clark said in an interview with The Chronicle-Journal. “The 2012-2013 budget is balanced.”
An earlier news story about the Lakehead board’s Friday meeting stated the university’s strategic plan projected a $35-$50 million deficit by 2014.
However, that information came from the 2009 strategic plan, Clark said, and represented what could have happened “if, over a certain period of time, we continued down a certain pathway.”
Things have changed now, he said, and the university recorded a budget surplus of $1.6 million for the 2011-12 fiscal year, which ended on April 30.
“We’re on the cusp of creating a new strategic plan,” Clark said.
“Flowing out of that will be an integrated budget which we believe will position Lakehead for future success.
“On an ongoing basis, I think we’ve made strategic decisions . . . that have mitigated any potential over-expenditures that might have occurred.”

(Note: This story was published in the Wednesday, Oct. 3, 2012 edition of The Chronicle-Journal.)