Financial Analysis of a Successful Multi-User Academic Laboratory

Abstract

Maintaining a working university laboratory with capability to build any kind of electronic devices is a major effort and commitment on the part of the faculty. The only way we could manage is by pooling all efforts in a shared facility; developing a balanced financial structure and providing transparency to participating PIs; having a dedicated, professional staff to maintain equipment and processes; efficient equipment utilization by applying computer control; providing student training and support, and by keeping safety issues in the fore front. Of all these crucial components I will address our financial strategy and how the UC Berkeley Microlab maintained its fiscal health over the years. While the financial support structure, scale of operation, and missions of other labs may differ from ours, many of the problems we have been struggling with are fundamental and every lab's management has to deal with them. The type and scale of a university semiconductor fabrication laboratory should be in line with existing and planned research activities and the realistic support likely to come from them. Grants obtained for lab construction and startup are quickly expended, leaving the organization to its own resources. Without a strong supporting base and some type of subsidy, a university lab will face extreme difficulties. The Berkeley Microlab, now the Nanolab is a campus "Recharge Center", which means that it provides specific, ongoing services to a number of PIs, units, or projects, and recovers the costs of these services from the units served on a "rate basis". We develop and submit for review "recharge rates" to recover the costs of operations such as salaries, benefits, equipment maintenance and depreciation, materials, services and supplies. The campus Recharge Committee monitors compliance. When the Microlab opened for general use 28 years ago, a recharge structure was initiated based on estimated expenses and income. Over the years the rates increased with inflation, but the basic structure is still the same and includes the following categories: Monthly Access Fee, General Laboratory Rate, Special Equipment Rate, Exceptional Equipment rate and Staff Services. Except for the monthly access fee, applied as long as the lab member (user) is in active status, hourly rates are established (billed by actual use-minutes). The rates are calculated by dividing the total estimated expenses for the category by the estimated use hours. Laboratory and equipment use data is provided by an equipment computer control software system, which records start and end times of each use. This data is fed into the accounting module which provides monthly, yearly, periodic reports on demand. Monthly billing is uploaded to the University's accounting system, attaching the charges directly to the assigned research grants. Faculty PIs receive monthly informative statements directly from the lab. Once the billing mechanism was in place, we developed strict budgetary control procedures. Established an independent account number for the lab; developed a yearly budget in detail; monitored and analyzed expenditures/income monthly; implemented management control of all non-standard expenditures and sign-off on all expenditures above X Dollars; reviewed staff allocation regularly; established an efficient structure for revenue collection, and provided transparency of finances. The Microlab followed these guidelines throughout its operation, with the result of a balanced budget and compliance with University rules.