[Plsfaculty] Dean's meeting today

[Galbraith, David W - (galbrait)]

Hi all:
Here's a summary of what was covered today in the budgetary meeting called by Dean Burgess.  Invited were all unit heads, business managers, and various representatives of CALES admin.   A useful place to start is the following recording of the latest ABOR meeting (https://youtu.be/GFA4-MvDnJ8?si=AetqQMy5buPOxEXV&t=3643}.  The regents are telling the UA, in no uncertain terms, to provide a plan to avoid continued depletion of total cash balances across the entire university. This is a significant amount:  the Regents would like approximately 140 day-equivalents of cash on hand, now representing some $250M!
My take is in agreement with what you can glean from the video, and the attached document is also a useful source of ancillary information.  The university appears to have underestimated the costs of growth of ABOR-approved programs, and did nothing over the last few years to correct the lack of balance between income and expenditures (I think this particularly includes student aid commitments, which are laudable but only if balanced with available cash to cover future commitments).  It also includes the growth plans for the university (the pillars and so-on).  However, there are also notable new problems: one is associated with PAC10 athletics.  It appears UA football is losing money (no surprise there, given the cosmic reorganization of (semi)-professional football on campus), but that UA now must bail them out.  Personally, I feel the PAC10 and UA has been completely outplayed, over the last year or so, in terms of recovering maximal funding from the college football enterprise.  Another problem is UAGC being overspent by some $83M (if I got that right).
The concern about depletion of ready cash balances across the campus explains to me the recent paralysis of middle and upper admin decision-making.  Apparently the central administration was not completely transparent with CALES, to the extent that our admin was blindsided by the data presented at this very recent ABOR meeting.  As far as I can understand it, the arguments about the effects of different budgetary models (AIB versus RCM) end up being a red herring.
There is no obvious way for us alone to solve the cash imbalance, as far as I can see.  However, we can do our best to attract new student registration, increase SCH, and decrease expenditures. I am very sorry to be the bearer of this bad news.
Please let me know if you have any comments, suggestions, or questions.

All best wishes,

David

David W. Galbraith, PhD
Interim Director
School of Plant Sciences | College of Agriculture and Life Sciences
THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Forbes 303 | 1140 E. South Campus Dr.
PO Box 210036 | Tucson, AZ 85721
Phone 520-205-1962 (Cell)


We respectfully acknowledge the University of Arizona is on the land and territories of Indigenous peoples. Today, Arizona is home to 22 federally recognized tribes, with Tucson being home to the O'odham and the Yaqui. Committed to diversity and inclusion, the University strives to build sustainable relationships with sovereign Native Nations and Indigenous communities through education offerings, partnerships, and community service.





-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://list.cals.arizona.edu/pipermail/plsfaculty/attachments/20231107/83e5c711/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 2023-11-02-UGO-Committee-Book.pdf
Type: application/pdf
Size: 25724110 bytes
Desc: 2023-11-02-UGO-Committee-Book.pdf
URL: <https://list.cals.arizona.edu/pipermail/plsfaculty/attachments/20231107/83e5c711/attachment-0001.pdf>