Examining USask’s financial health: Ten questions with the new CFO

Henne earned her Master of Business Administration in 2009 from the Ivey Business School at Western University, a commerce degree at McMaster University in 1999, and an accounting diploma from Georgian College in 1996. She began her career with Ernst & Young, then served at Hamilton Health Sciences and at McMaster University, where she was CFO. A leader in financial sustainability and governance, she has led operational turnarounds and impactful initiatives across research organizations, health care, and higher education, and remains active as a researcher in investment practices and responsible business.

Appointed to CPA Canada’s Reporting and Assurance Standards Oversight Council in early 2024, Henne was hired as USask’s new CFO in July 2024. She held her first public presentation in the new post at USask on Nov. 20, 2024, when she led a Strategic Finance Town Hall to provide a progress update to the campus community. The next Strategic Finance Town Hall is scheduled for Wednesday, April 16.

Henne recently sat down with USask’s On Campus News for a question-and-answer session to discuss the state of the university’s finances and current challenges and opportunities.

Q: Eight months into your new position, how well has your crash-course gone to get up to speed on USask’s finances?
A: It’s going well. I was well-supported by the team in the strategic finance office, along with the controller, the president, board members, and other executives who helped me meet and get onboarded through informal conversations and who made sure that I had a broad perspective of what is happening across this university. The nice thing about being here is there is so much breadth to the college activity and so much happening. Where I had been (at McMaster) we had far fewer colleges, so here it took a bit longer to become familiar with the nuances between the different colleges and schools. It’s exciting to see how much activity is happening at this university, including the research platforms, because USask has an academic and research ecosystem and infrastructure that’s very advanced, and supported by an impressive community.

Q: Can you summarize the general state of the university’s finances and its $1.3-billion annual budget?
A: The current state is we’re financially resilient to get through the next year, given what is going on in the world. Across Canada, in the United States, and globally, we are hearing about universities shutting down programs and laying off faculty, but we are nowhere near that situation. We have been fiscally prudent. Historically, we have had large reserves that the government asked us to spend that down, which we did. Over the last five years USask has worked to restore a baseline of reserves to deal with times like we are heading into now. Right now, we have a balanced budget and going into 2025/26 we will continue to have a balanced consolidated budget. Our revenue growth is not keeping pace with our expenses, which grow by just over three per cent every year, but we can handle that for one year and take this year to strategize about what revenue or expense levers we use to balance the budget in future years.

Q: What do you see as the most pressing financial challenges that USask is facing?
A: I think one of the biggest challenges facing us is that our ambitions exceed the government funding we have available to distribute. So, our biggest challenge is making sure that the public, industry, and government understand what the university can do for job creation and for new solutions that contribute to society and focus on sustainability and efficiency. We need to make sure that our message is positioned succinctly on what value we’re driving. It needs to be clear that USask is a solid partner for industry and government. Looking inside the university, I think our biggest challenge is ensuring that people within the university understand how much money we take in and how it is deployed. Internal university expenses are growing at a rate exceeding how fast we can increase our revenues, and that is not sustainable without some form of revenue growth. So, we need a paradigm shift, which means we need to diversify our revenues and ideally grow industry support, and we need to make sure our value is understood. The economic uncertainties arising from the south suggest we may not see the levels of growth we had hoped for in our next multi-year agreement with the province, meaning we will need to be creative and innovative and have more industry partners supporting the university in the future.

Q: What do you see as the biggest financial opportunities for the university moving forward?
A: I see good opportunity for the University of Saskatchewan, and the entire university sector. The financial uncertainties we currently face are being further challenged by a quickly shifting global political climate. These issues are resulting in a banding together, increasing our sectoral and national connectivity. We have an excellent opportunity to focus on the virtues of democracy, freedom of expression and speech, and other freedoms living in a civil society, which Canada affords us. Our university, along with our sector, has a huge role to play in ensuring the merits of these freedoms are understood. This translates to our financial opportunities; our free democratic society with human rights we uphold and protect make us an extremely attractive place to learn, live, and work. We are seeing an in swell of talent wanting to be in Canada. USask has an opportunity to welcome this talent which will help grow its innovation agenda for the benefit of Saskatchewan, Canada, and the globe.

Q: What percentage of the university’s annual operating budget is funded by tuition?
A: It’s changing from year-to-year mainly because of what we are seeing with the federal policy limiting international students. Normally our biggest area of revenue growth to help us fill our funding gaps on salaries and capital projects and research is from tuition, and international student participation really gives us that lift. With an annual budget of $1.3 billion, we are expecting approximately $240 million to come from tuition and fees, so close to 19 per cent.

Q: What is USask’s plan for navigating the choppy financial waters ahead due to the cap on international students?
A: Right now, we are hoping for a re-think of this policy structure that was put in across the board as a solution to a housing problem that existed elsewhere in Canada, not Saskatoon and Saskatchewan. The policy has been a swift blunt instrument affecting universities across Canada, which is further exacerbated by years of fairly flat provincial funding levels, and now tariff-inflationary risks. International students, beyond the financial stability they offer, bring global perspectives onto campuses, enriching classrooms and driving research innovation across our graduate programs. The foundation of universities across Canada was built on the idea that we would have our institutions not only serve our domestic population, but we would create an innovation engine by educating graduates from around the world whereby some would stay to be entrepreneurial and create new companies and enhance the province’s workforce. So, with the study visa limitations expanding in 2025/26, we are hopeful there could be a re-think of this policy, a lift to the limit targets, particularly given the growing interest south of Canada to participate in our higher-education system. Universities need some urgent financial support, and this might be the easiest area to adjust, without losing its core purpose.

Q: When you look at the national post-secondary landscape, how is the University of Saskatchewan doing in comparison to universities across the country?
A: I would say that we are very fortunate in Saskatchewan, and I am very personally grateful that this university has a great, open, collaborative relationship, not only with Sask Polytech and the University of Regina, but with the government. So, from an operating grant perspective, we’re positioned well to support this province’s agenda on growth and innovation and its needs for health care and agriculture, etc. Because we are a university delivering on what the province wants, I think that we are a standout in comparison to others across Canada from coast-to-coast. So, we have a lot to be thankful for, including the certainty and stability our province provided with its March 19th budget announcement, amidst tariff uncertainties.

Q: With ongoing budget challenges, how important is annual fundraising, and particularly the university’s $500 million Be What The World Needs campaign?
A: The donations secured during the campaign are critical to enhancing the university. Donors provide us with a means to better support our students, our research innovations, and our infrastructure. Donor funding helps us find solutions to complex societal problems and ensures that we remain a strong, research-intensive university that provides exceptional education to our graduates. Whether it is a contribution to medicine, food or water security, animal or plant health, or a gift to support Huskies student-athletics, you name it, we need donor dollars for infrastructure, for programming, for research chairs, and for student support. So, the $500-million campaign is wonderful, and we are going into a year of gratitude celebrating those gifts, but I am really hoping that donors continue to realize that there is an ongoing need to support this university; I would hate to see people think, OK, we are done. We will continue fundraising and we trust our donors continue to see value in investing in our university. Donors want to help find solutions to big societal problems, and this includes companies who want both innovations and access to our great graduates who have benefited from a pluralistic education and become engaged contributors to our society. Everyone wants a healthy society and to know there is food security, water security, and vaccines for the next health crisis. This university drives that innovation, so we’re hopeful that donors see us as a great investment for their own interests, their own business reasons, and for the wellness of society.

Q: Is the university well-positioned financially to tackle building renewal projects over the coming years?
A: Where the university struggles the most is in finding money to maintain existing assets. Every university across the nation, including USask, has what we call deferred maintenance, and we have needs where the structures that we built 50, 60 or more years ago are no longer the types of structures that we need moving forward. So, we are grateful to   donors who understand that the province can only fund a portion of our capital priorities because in Saskatchewan, SaskBuilds funds us and we are on the same priority list next to hospitals, highways, bridges, you name it, when it comes to infrastructure. We’re thankful for donors who want to help us renovate and change the purpose of existing infrastructure, in addition to building new. In some cases, that support can come from naming a wing or naming a building or naming a floor. No matter how the support is offered, we are grateful whenever donors express an interest in helping to fund infrastructure renewal and new buildings.

Q: What are your thoughts on the challenges for the university presented by the new tariffs?
A: The tariff threats have actually re-invigorated national pride, so as economically terrible as tariffs are with some irreversible damage that will cost both sides of the border, the one thing that we can look optimistically at is that it has created national recognition that we are a proud country that can survive through challenges thrust upon us. And so, what you are going to see is this huge opportunity where we’re graduating students who are entering into a marketplace that has goods and services gaps because we are going to want to secure those things in Canada. This situation provides the opening for our graduates to be entrepreneurial and fill those gaps in the Canadian marketplace. This unfortunate tariff situation has invigorated national unity, which is positive for the culture of Canada and an opportunity for our graduates.