UC Davis is changing its administrative structure to better support the 2020 Initiative, and to establish better coordination between the Davis and Sacramento campuses in the areas of finance, human resources, planning, facilities and other functions.

Here is what is happening:

• ARM — The Davis campus’s Administrative and Resource Management will be divided into two units, one called Finance and Resource Management, and the other called Campus Planning, Facilities and Safety.

• Dotted lines — The executives in charge of similar administrative functions in the UC Davis Health System will have dotted-line relationships to vice chancellors on the Davis campus.

Implementation is expected to begin before the end of the calendar year, said ARM Vice Chancellor John Meyer, who sent a letter to ARM’s 1,500 employees this week to tell them about the change.

“Our mission is to provide the resources and services that are needed for the 2020 Initiative,” Meyer told Dateline UC Davis. “And this organizational structure suits our campus well, so we can get the job done.”

The future includes the campus’s 2020 Initiative, built on enrollment growth of up to 5,000 undergraduates as a way to put UC Davis on more stable financial footing.

But this is not growth for growth’s sake. “We are raising up all of UC Davis, with more diversity, more faculty, more research, more innovation and more economic development around the region,” the chancellor said, “and we must do it with good planning, good budgeting and first-class facilities.”

Finance and Resource Management

Given the increasing economic complexities facing higher education institutions, coupled with the campus’s expanded financial responsibility associated with UC’s new systemwide budget model, the chancellor said, “it is more critical now than ever that we have the expertise needed to effectively manage our current $3.7 billion and growing annual campus budget.”

As such, a new vice chancellor-chief financial officer (CFO) will lead this new division, comprising Accounting and Financial Services, Budget and Institutional Analysis, Human Resources, Organizational Excellence and the Shared Services Center.

The health system’s chief financial officer will have a dotted-line relationship to the vice chancellor-CFO of Finance and Resource Management. The university has begun recruiting for this position, and hopes to have someone on board by the end of 2013.

“Our new organizational strategy acknowledges the importance of developing a comprehensive view of all campus finances,” said Meyer, noting how the campus — under UCOP’s new budget model — has been granted increased autonomy in financial management.

Campus Planning, Facilities and Safety

Meyer will lead this division, comprising the remainder of ARM: the units that are responsible for sustaining a sound infrastructure and enriching campus experience. They are Campus Planning and Community Resources, Capital and Space Planning (formerly Capital Resource Management), Design and Construction Management, Environmental Stewardship and Sustainability, Facilities Management, Utilities, the Fire Department and Safety Services as well as Police Department administration (the police chief will continue to report to the provost and executive vice chancellor).

The executive director of the health system’s Facilities Services Division will have a dotted-line relationship to Meyer.

The division’s primary tasks will include the development of a new and comprehensive campus master plan to address UC Davis’ “extraordinary current and future capital needs,” Meyer said. The plan will address not only the 5,000 additional undergraduates as envisioned by the 2020 Initiative, but corresponding numbers of graduate students, faculty and administrative support personnel.

New growth spurt

ARM came into existence in October 2009, in the third year of what would turn out to be five consecutive years of reduced state funding to UC. As a result, UC Davis was looking everywhere for cost savings and efficiencies.

Thus, the university consolidated the Office of Administration and the Office of Resource Management and Planning, bringing all of the campus’s municipal-like services into one unit — the new ARM.

Coupled with the retirements of Stan Nosek as vice chancellor of the Office of Administration and Maurice “Mo” Hollman as associate vice chancellor for Facilities Management (neither was replaced), the ARM consolidation saved an estimated $900,000 a year.

But, just as ORMP had been established to support a campus growth spurt, now comes a new spurt — the 2020 Initiative — and a move toward closer coordination between the university’s two campuses.

“Our two new administrative divisions will position us well for the future,” Meyer said.

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