FROM THE PROVOST: Planning will help minimize additional fiscal sacrifices

Dear Campus Community Members:

The governor's proposed budget confirms what we anticipated — that additional sacrifice will be required of UC and UC Davis, and of many others who depend upon state resources.

We, and UC's many advocates, will do our best during the budget negotiation process to minimize cuts to the university, but it's only prudent that we begin planning now for what is reasonably likely to be our fiscal circumstance for 2004-05.

We approached this past year's budget planning in much the same way. With many unknowns, we created a consultative planning process that was strategically driven and based on principles. That process and those principles — including, for example, that cuts would be made strategically and not across the board and that consultation would be broad and communication open, honest and frequent — will again serve us well as we address our short-term challenges in the context of the campus's long-term health.

The newly adopted UC Davis Vision: A Strategic Plan to Achieve Campus Aspirations will also help guide our budget decisions by confirming areas for the wisest investment of our resources and our time.

It's too soon to estimate a range of cuts that might be required of the campus, or to judge whether the very troubling proposed elimination of K-12 outreach funding will be sustained in the state's final budget. While the campus' share of UC-wide cuts is generally 15 percent, the Office of the President hasn't yet informed the campuses how it would assign cuts for 2004-05, or whether it would pass along the governor's proposed mid-year unallocated cut of $15.7 million. We are advised, though, to continue our reduction planning.

Toward that end, the Budget Planning Workgroup met last week to undertake initial consideration of the governor's proposed budget and other such fiscal challenges as an annual $5 million shortfall in funding for utilities, a $100 million backlog in deferred maintenance, and lack of funding to operate and maintain 320,000 square feet of new state-supportable space that will come on board this year and next.

Other anticipated budget discussions and actions for the remainder of the academic year include:

February: Budget Planning Workgroup reviews budget reduction scenarios and options. The state's Office of the Legislative Analyst re-leases analysis of governor's budget in mid-Feb-ruary. Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors discusses budget process at mid-month retreat.

March: Budget call letter — including budget reduction targets, planning assumptions and directions for preparing unit budget plans — issued to deans, vice chancellors and vice provosts. Cross-campus information meetings held to review and discuss planning framework. Deans, vice chancellors and vice provosts hold budget planning meetings and discussions. Regents consider student fee increases.

April: Campus consultation continues. Budget plans due from deans, vice chancellors and vice provosts.

May: Governor's revised budget due mid-May. Campus's Office of Resource Management and Planning provides analysis of budget plans to Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors.

June: Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors holds all-day meeting to review unit plans and to inform budget decisions.

July: Final budget decisions announced.

As soon as updated information is available, I will share it. Please check our dedicated budget Web site (http://www.news.ucdavis.edu/budget/) for periodic updates.

I know these are challenging times for our campus family, especially for those who participate in programs facing elimination or significant downsizing, who anticipate having to pay higher fees, who may be delayed in their enrollment, or who will not receive a deserved increase in salary.

But I have no doubt that we will meet this short-term challenge with resolve and in good faith, and with the knowledge that better times are surely ahead. Our observance soon of UC Davis' centennial is strong testament to the intrinsic value and remarkable resilience of this campus. I've no doubt that our second century will be even brighter than our first.

— Virginia Hinshaw, provost and executive vice chancellor

Media Resources

Lisa Lapin, Executive administration, (530) 752-9842, lalapin@ucdavis.edu

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