Mid-year budget reductions – totaling more than $6 million of the UC system’s $74 million mid-year cut – have been assigned campus units.

"For the most part, I will continue to assign the reductions as one-time reductions for the current year to allow the campus planning process to proceed," Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw wrote deans, vice chancellors and vice provosts in a Dec. 27 memo.

"Permanent reductions will be necessary in 2003-04, and will likely be much higher as the state attempts to reconcile the significant deficit that it currently faces," she said.

Gov. Gray Davis has estimated the state’s shortfall to be as high as $34.8 billion.

Campus mid-year cuts total:

• $2.7 million (3 percent) permanent reduction in campus administration (institutional support, academic support, libraries and clinical teaching support);

• $886,000 (5 percent) permanent reduction in student services (registration fee-funded programs)

• $182,000 permanent reduction in public service (outreach programs and other public service); and

• $2 million one-time reduction in the M.I.N.D. Institute’s state-funded research programs.

Hinshaw said she would allocate the reductions strategically by exempting the following programs:

• College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, exempt from the administration cut in recognition of the already assigned significant reductions in organized research funds;

• Veterinary Medicine Teaching Hospital, exempt from the academic support reduction in recognition of the instructional nature of the program;

• Campus advancement programs – including University Relations and unit development officers – exempt from the administrative cut in order to preserve the campus’s ability to maintain and expand fund-raising efforts;

• Sponsored program administration in both the Office of Research and the Office of Administration, exempt from the adminstrative cut "to preserve the infrastructure for this important and rapidly expanding enterprise";

• Student Affairs, exempted from the previously assigned 1.7 percent across-the-board reduction in recognition of the significant reduction in registration fee-funded programs and "the high priority that the campus places on providing high quality programs for students"; and

• Office of Graduate Studies, partial exemption from the administrative cut in recognition of "the high priority that the campus places on graduate student support."

To mitigate a $19 million unallocated reduction in university funding, the UC Board of Regents in December approved fee increases for this spring, with one-third of the fee increase directed to financial aid.

Undergraduates will pay an additional $135 per quarter. Law, management and medical school professional students will pay an extra $400 per quarter and veterinary medicine students will pay an additional $350.

Hinshaw said she based her budget decisions on earlier-announced principles and priorities and on the advice of a budget planning workgroup appointed last fall.

The principles include:

• reduce budgets strategically, focusing on the campus’s academic mission;

• recognize the fundamental contributions of both faculty and staff to the academic mission;

• communicate openly, honestly and frequently;

• consult broadly;

• streamline current processes and procedures to reduce expenditures and mitigate staff workload;

• seek new resources; and

• increase student access.

The priorities include:

• enhance the quality of faculty-student interactions

• improve working conditions and reduce staff workload;

• increase research opportunities; and

• accelerate the capital program to accommodate growth.

"We are committed to an open budget process," said John Meyer, vice chancellor for resource management and planning.

"We have heard from the campus community that it needs ongoing communication regarding budget actions.

The provost’s letter announcing mid-year budget reductions underscores her pledge to share information widely with all who may be affected."

Consult the campus’s budget Web page, www.news.ucdavis.edu/budget/, for periodic updates on the budget process at UC Davis.