UC Davis administrators forced to cut $15 million from their 2004-05 operating budgets are proposing to trim just about anything except staff members.
What's fair game: spending on phones, photocopiers, instructional equipment and computers; service levels; unit organizational structures. What's not: almost 99 percent of the campus's 2,500 employees who are paid with general funds.
The draft budgets submitted in late April by deans, vice chancellors and vice provosts would lay off 25 to 30 staff members, said Kelly Ratliff, assistant vice chancellor for budget resources and institutional planning.
About 40 other staff positions now vacant will be eliminated. Some staff members will reduce their appointments.
Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Virginia Hinshaw set the campus spending targets in late March based on Gov. Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget. She asked administrators to work with their units to find 6 percent in permanent reductions in general-fund expenses.
Hinshaw directed that the cuts be strategic, not across the board. Excluded from consideration were outreach spending, purchased utilities, graduate-student support and salaries of ladder-rank faculty members.
The budget plans were sent to Hinshaw at the end of April. After budget analysts in Ratliff's office evaluate the plans and refine them with the departments, Hinshaw will lead a review of the proposals with campus leaders on June 4.
After any further necessary refinements, the budgets will become effective July 1.
Gov. Schwarzenegger's revised budget, announced May 13, did not include further cuts to the 2004-05 UC budget. And a compact between the governor and state university systems, announced May 11, promises small budget increases in the subsequent several years.
The compact says that the governor will fund annual budget increases of 3 percent in 2005-07 and 4 percent in 2007-11.
Some of that 3-4 percent likely will go to pay raises for faculty and staff, said John Meyer, UC Davis vice chancellor for resource management and planning. It also could support some outreach programs, which develop and recruit students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The compact also raises student fees substantially, with increases ranging from 14 percent for undergraduates to about 30 percent for professional-school students. (At UC Davis the fee increase for undergraduates is 19 percent; see related story on page 1 and continued below for details.)
"The compact's most important feature is some long-term certainty," Meyer said. "It provides us the ability to plan over several years.
"It also prevents further draconian cuts next year and offers some modest budget increases to offset inflation and other cost increases."
The May 11 compact between the state's university systems and the Republican governor is not binding on the state Legislature. The Legislature and governor will continue to negotiate final state budgets every year, as they always have.
The next milestone in the budget process at the state level is June 15, when the Legislature is supposed to submit its budget proposal to the governor. The governor has said he will sign a budget on time, by June 30.
Details regarding the compact are at: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/compact/welcome.html/.
And further background on the UC budget situation can be found at: http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/budget.