Actions already taken by University of Arizona officials to correct financial problems include identifying 13 UA leadership positions for elimination or reclassification and deferring capital projects, according to an Arizona Board of Regents report on Friday addressed to Gov. Katie Hobbs.
Maria Sohn Hasman, United Campus Worker Arizona’s media representative and UA staff member, said while the regent’s report doesn’t contain a lot of new information, union members were pleasantly surprised to see that highly-paid administrative positions were on the chopping block. The union has called for President Robert Robbins to resign, and for cuts to come at the executive level to hold leadership accountable for mismanaging UA’s finances.
“That’s cautiously exciting,” she said. “That’s what we mean by ‘chop from the top’ and we’d like more of that.”
Hobbs requested the report in a Jan. 25 letter to Arizona Board of Regents Chair Fred DuVal and Executive Director John Arnold, who was appointed as UA’s interim chief financial officer after the finance debacle. The letter slammed UA officials, repeatedly citing leadership’s failures, and asked for a report outlining major strategies being used to resolve the financial problems including metrics and benchmarks.
The governor also asked for a strategy to improve transparency and accuracy with the university’s communication. The governor’s office responded to Arizona Luminaria’s request for comment in an email Friday, stating: “We are still reviewing the report.” Officials said they would offer more information after that review.
Without intervention, the UA is currently on track to overspend by $177 million, $37 million more than last year’s deficit of $140 million, according to the report.
“We are moving forward with deliberate speed, purpose and fidelity to chart the right path forward for UArizona,” the report’s cover letter stated. “The Board is taking all actions necessary to ensure that Arizona’s public universities continue to provide an outstanding educational experience for their students, research that drives economies and improves lives, and outreach that benefits millions across the state of Arizona and far beyond.”
Here are some of the key takeaways. For more, read the full report here:
John Arnold
In her Jan. 25 letter, Hobbs recommended the board remove Arnold from his current position as interim UA chief financial officer “as quickly as possible” to avoid “a real or perceived conflict of interest with Executive Director Arnold serving in a dual capacity in his role at ABOR and as CFO at the University of Arizona.”
Regents responded in the Feb. 9 report to Hobbs, saying they had not removed Arnold. Rather, “the University and the Board are moving in that direction as quickly as appropriate.”
In December, Robbins requested Arnold step in as the university’s interim CFO and Senior Vice President of Business Affairs — a move which the board approved. Arnold was charged with leading the fiscal plan. Those steps came after former CFO Lisa Rulney resigned amid outcry.
UA workers were further outraged when they later found out university leaders kept Rulney on staff in a business operations advisory role and maintained her full salary.
Strategies
The 17-page report included many strategies the university says it is undertaking to address financial problems:
- 13 high-level roles have been identified for elimination or reclassification as part of an initiative to cut administrative costs by re-evaluating vice president, vice provost and vice dean positions to affirm, reclassify, and/or eliminate them.
- The Office of the Provost has permanently eliminated currently vacant positions in colleges and units, saving $27 million.
- University officials will defer non-essential capital projects, including the University of Arizona Museum of Art, if they’re funded with “internal, unrestricted resources” and have not started construction.
- UA officials plan to centralize different functions through actions like “eliminating duplicative efforts” in the Information Technology department, Marketing and Communications and Human Resources. While some departments currently have their own staff for certain functions, such as HR and IT, centralization efforts will make it so these unit-specific divisions will report to the central administration rather than their individual departments.
- Colleges and divisions will undergo detailed financial reviews between Feb. 15 and April 15 and are expected to have plans to reduce spending by 5%, 10% or 15% over the next 18-36 months.
- Outside global professional services firms will help restructure the athletics department and the University Online Platforms, including the University of Arizona Global Campus. The university and the board are in final negotiations with the firms.
- One firm will verify all financial information of the school’s online activities, give “a market assessment and recommendations on how to best position UA online” and undergo an efficiency review.
Transparency
Actions to to maintain transparency include the UA providing monthly reports to the board and governor’s office, regular media updates, continued consultations with university governance throughout the plan’s execution.
The letter also states the regents will hold two to three board meetings a month to provide “comprehensive updates on progress at the University of Arizona and the Board’s enhancements to its oversight of all three universities.”
For months, UA faculty, staff and students have expressed outrage and scathing criticism of the board, Robbins and other university leaders and their lack of transparency.
“In the report it reemphasizes the centralization of administrative services but they continue to not give us information of what that looks like,” union member Sohn Hasman said. “We have a lot of members in those departments and they’re still so scared for their jobs.”
Arizona Luminaria reached out for comment from Leila Hudson, chair of the Faculty Senate and associate professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies. As of late Friday, she had not responded.
Many faculty members have called for an independent, external audit. Now the union has hired Howard Bunsis to do an independent audit of the school’s finances.
Bunsis is the former chair of the American Association of University Professors’ Collective Bargaining Congress and has led similar financial audits at universities across the country.
He audited the UA’s finances in June 2020, finding that despite the university saying there was “an extreme financial crisis,” there was no such thing. He wrote then that “there is no need to lay off or furlough workers.” That new report is expected to be available in April.
University stakeholders have also criticized the school’s purchases of Ashford University, a beleaguered for-profit college acquired by the UA in 2020.
The university’s own school of economics argued in 2020 against the purchase, citing Ashford’s low graduation rates, high levels of student debt, decreasing enrollment and targeting of vulnerable populations like low-income students and veterans.
Hobbs has requested a report with the “rationale and process” behind the Ashford University acquisition by Feb. 20, 2024.
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