University of Arizona officials announced major headway in resolving the school’s fiscal troubles Thursday, saying they have reduced the $177 million budget shortfall to $52 million.
After months of reviewing departmental spending, new college budgets will become publicly available next week, officials said during a board of regents meeting in Tucson.
But UA students, faculty and staff continue pleading for inclusion in the school’s decision-making process.
A shrinking shortfall
Early Thursday morning, UA President Robert Robbins sent a mass email announcing the university’s projected budgetary shortfall dropped by $110 million since interim Chief Financial Officer John Arnold’s financial update two weeks ago.
“This is the result of concerted efforts by deans and leaders across the University who worked diligently on their budget plans to address spending trends and to significantly reduce the deficit,” Robbins wrote in an email to university stakeholders Thursday morning.
The school is reckoning with a financial crisis first discovered last November when then CFO, Lisa Rulney, announced the school was significantly low on its daily cash on hand, or cash reserves. Later, she revealed the school had a problem with overspending and had been pulling from its reserves to compensate.
For months, Arnold and Robbins have maintained that overspending at the hands of colleges and divisions was the biggest contributor to the year’s annual budgetary deficit. To establish new “right sized” budgets, Arnold met individually with department heads over the past two months, requesting budget plans incorporating 5%, 10% and 15% reduction proposals.
These efforts, Arnold said, have allowed the school to cut $71 million of its annual shortfall and next week he plans to release initial Fiscal Year 2025 budgets — which start on July 1, 2024 — for colleges, where cuts totaled $26.1 million.
The biggest budgetary changes have affected administration and the provost’s office, with a $30.1 million reduction in their FY25 budget, according to Arnold.
However, the progress is tentative and Arnold said he was nervous about sharing these numbers so early in the process.
“Let me start by saying that every number that I’m about to show you is wrong. It’s a budget and a budget is a financial projection,” Arnold said at the meeting. “We have confidence in these numbers but we’re also confident they’re gonna change in these upcoming weeks.”
The reduction was not solely due to cuts. Arnold’s presentation showed the school heavily relying on “base revenue assumptions” and “new revenue opportunities” for $39 million of the shortfall’s improvement. This includes an expected increase in online enrollment growth.
Former regent chair Fred DuVal asked if the school’s controversially acquired University of Arizona Global campus contributed to that growth.
“No, some UAGC but it’s also UA Online,” Arnold said.
DuVal pushed on the global campus’ positive impact on the school’s financial stability.
“But a diversification of our strategy has created a more stable and net positive balance sheet,” DuVal said, to which Arnold agreed. “That is an important point in the public dialogue about UAGC.”
The University of Arizona Global Campus and the Athletics Department will not be included in next week’s release because they’re still under third-party review by outside firms whose findings are due by the end of May.
“I’m pleased that we’ve got this framework. We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Robbins said after Arnold’s presentation.
Staff, students and faculty advocate for inclusion
Signs and posters with phrases like “Chop from the top” and “Fred DuVal can’t sue us all” trimmed the railing in front of the UA’s administrative building as dozens of union members from across the state rallied together in anticipation of the board of regents meeting later in the day.
“Shame!” they shouted at the mention of cuts and fiscal irresponsibility. Sentiments shared at the rally echoed those of the speakers’ during the call to the audience at the board of regents meeting.
Despite the school’s substantial financial progress, students expressed feeling sidelined in the school’s path forward.
Alyssa Sanchez, UA’s first Latina student body president, represents more than 40,000 undergraduate students and is one of only 18 people selected by the president to serve on the university advisory council. Despite her prominent leadership position, Sanchez said she has met with President Robbins five times during the school year.
“This level of inconsistent dialogue undermines the representation of students’ needs and concerns,” Sanchez said.
UA President Robert Robbins announced in early April that he planned to resign by the end of his current employment contract in 2026. The move followed months of scrutiny over his role in the UA’s financial crisis with many faculty, staff and students calling for his resignation.
When Chair Cecilia Mata announced her picks for the UA’s presidential search advisory committee, she described it as “one of the largest contingencies of faculty on an ABOR presidential search advisory committee and represents a broad array of campus organizations and leadership roles.”
The lack of faculty involvement has long been a point of contention as many elected faculty representatives have called out Robbins and the board of regents for not properly engaging in shared governance as they slash budgets and make major changes to university’s operation.
The committee of 18 people, spanning multiple levels of seniority — including Gov. Katie Hobbs’ education policy advisor — has one undergraduate student representative and no graduate student representation.
“We must be present at the table and part of the conversation to ensure our students’ voices do not fall through the cracks,” Sanchez said.
Joshua Liberman, a graduate student at the UA’s College of Optical Sciences and a union member, said he was heartened to see staff, faculty and undergraduate students represented in the presidential search committee but something gave him pause.
“I was concerned, however, that graduate students have no voice in the search process,” Lieberman said. The UA has almost 11,000 graduate students.
Without representation, students fear the things that matter to them will be swept aside.
Holly Thomas, a UA graduate student in the College of Geosciences, spoke at the rally and at the regent’s meeting during the call to the audience about the school halting its climate action plan amid the financial crisis.
“Without immediate and dramatic climate action there will be no University of Arizona,” Thomas told the regents. “Financial plans and strategic investing are obsolete on a scorched planet in a state without water.”
Thomas acknowledged the school’s constraints but urged the regents and Robbins to not drop the plan.
“I know the logistics are challenging and money scars but I implore you to do everything in your power to ensure that a Climate Action Plan progresses as planned,” Thomas said.
Betts Putnam-Hidalgo, a community member and UA graduate who also ran for TUSD school board, advocated for more inclusion of students and faculty as the school’s financial reforms continue.
“You don’t exist without students and you don’t exist without professors,” Hidalgo told the regents during the call to the audience. “Those are the people you need to help you solve this problem. I urge you to use what you have created in your brain trust.”
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