Budget challenge: about $33.5 million to go

by Dave Jones
July 31, 2009

When the Legislature and governor finished their budget wrangling last week, UC Davis moved a step closer to knowing for certain how much state money the campus would be short in 2009-10.

Final numbers are still awaited from the Office of the President. And then the campus needs to come up with answers on how to deal with the shortfall in its entirety.

The total for the year is still estimated at nearly $114 million, of which the campus has already dealt with $80.5 million (with cuts in academic and administrative units, plus student fee increases and salary savings from employee furloughs, for example).

That leaves an estimated $33.5 million left to deal with. Administrators say the challenge will require many innovative strategies, including realignment, consolidation and closure of programs and services, both academic and administrative.

Some of the answers may come from a long-term budget planning process that so far has yielded reports from five subcommittees: administration, capital budget and space planning, instruction and research, self-supporting activities, and student services.

The provost originally charged the subcommittees with working toward budget savings for 2010-11. But now, with the campus still short for 2009-10, the provost is examining the reports to see what budget-saving actions can be implemented early.

The rest of the shortfall

Here is how the campus is dealing with the other $80.5 million of the estimated shortfall for 2009-10:

• $20.5 million in cuts to academic and administrative units.

• $5 million in savings from a slowdown in faculty hiring.

• $17 million in added revenue from the systemwide student fee increase, and additional student fee revenue from overenrollment.

• $2.5 million in added revenue from an increase in nonresident tuition, plus additional nonresident enrollment.

• $6 million in savings from canceling or deferring centrally funded activities and projects.

• $7.5 million in savings from debt restructuring for general campus projects.

• $22 million in savings from employee furloughs.

The systemwide furlough plan takes effect Sept. 1, by order of the Board of Regents. Most employees have been ordered to take 11 to 26 days without pay, through Aug. 31, 2010; this translates into salary reductions of 4 percent to 10 percent. The more money you make, the more furlough days you must take.

Furlough days will apply to most everyone — except most student employees, such as graduate students, as well as personnel whose funding comes entirely from contracts and grants.

The Office of the President, in setting up the furlough plan, authorized each campus to decide how to implement the furloughs — and UC Davis is still working that out.

One option under consideration is to shut the campus down on specified days; these days would be furlough days for all employees, except for police and fire personnel and others whose services are essential to keep the campus safe and secure.

Administrators are still weighing suggested days for campus closures and how many there might be. If the number of closure days is less than your total number of furlough days, you would take the remaining days under a system to be worked out at your unit level (for example, your unit may decide to close down on specified days, different from the campuswide closure days).

The Academic Senate is surveying its members as to whether campus closures should occur on what would normally be teaching days. The survey presents two options:

• Option 1 — Designate between six and nine furlough days on instruction days.

• Option 2 — Designate all furlough days on noninstruction intersession days.

Senate Chair Robert Powell, in a letter to the membership, said: “In suggesting Option 1, the majority of the Executive Council believes that the campus has reached a point that state funding reductions can no longer be simply absorbed without any consequences.”