Abstract
Public sectors depend mainly on external financing sources such as investors and government to support their construction projects and facilities. Under conditions of limited funding availability for construction and a low rate of economic growth, it is extremely important to consider potential shifts in funding from one project to another. Budget tradeoffs between different projects is a vital process, especially when the amount of available funding is limited and there is not enough to support all ongoing and planned projects. This paper presents a mathematic model developed and implemented to prioritize and rank the importance of different academic projects on a new university's campus. Criteria to prioritize the need for each building have been identified and determined. The proposed funding allocation model uses weighted formulas based on the adequacy of each building, number of users, safety, capability of the contractor, and other criteria. The prioritization scenario generated by the proposed model serves as a foundation to plan for an optimal combination of sequenced expenditures in order to maximize the benefit obtained from each facility within the scope of available funding. The proposed model contributes to the body of knowledge by helping construction firms to manage and shift the allocated budget between different projects and to find an efficient scenario to use the limited funding.