The Daily Agenda: Chop from the top
The UA is preparing a plan to deal with its budget shortfall … Students want to see the people in charge held responsible … Wittenbraker aims for Supes seat.
As thousands of University of Arizona students prepare for next week’s final exams, staffers in President Robert C. Robbins' office are readying themselves for a very different type of test.
The UA must submit a corrective plan to the Arizona Board of Regents by next Friday, explaining how administrators intend to address the reported $240 million budget shortfall1 that has pushed the school into a financial crisis and left faculty, staff and students feeling frustrated and confused.
In a report to regents last month, UA officials said they’d miscalculated the amount of cash on hand. Instead of having 156 days of funding, they had just 97 days of cash.
Robbins has said a lot over the past month about what he believes led to the crisis and what actions he won’t be taking to make up for the lost cash. But he’s said little about what kinds of cuts he’ll make — other than layoffs to the athletics department announced on Monday — leading to widespread speculation on the UA campus and beyond.
Regents were on campus a few weeks ago for their regularly scheduled meeting, during which they heard concerns from faculty, staff, students and Tucson residents.
The students who spoke, most of whom were involved with student government, expressed fear over the potential impact of the situation on their university-issued financial aid and merit awards. While Robbins has said in the weeks since the meeting that he won’t reduce or eliminate need-based financial aid, merit-based assistance is still on the chopping block.
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As the powers that be ponder the financial fate of the UA, we wanted to highlight the voices of the people who will be most affected: the students. So, Kyra decided to poll the audience and spent some time asking students for their thoughts on the situation.
Spoiler alert: They want to see the people responsible for the mess held accountable.
"The University of Arizona's administration horribly mismanaged our money. Any attempt on cutting financial aid, scholarship money, or guaranteed tuition is (the) administration attempting to bail themselves out by hurting their own students,” said Ross Nemeth, a junior serving as the W.A. Franke Honors College Senator. “The university needs to cut from the top to fix their mistakes.”
Nemeth isn’t the only student asking the UA to implement cuts from the top down, or at the very least, for Robbins and Senior Vice President for Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer Lisa Rulney, to take accountability for their mistakes.
“It is definitely strange that millions and millions of dollars are missing,” said junior Gigi Goodman. “It’s ridiculous that someone whose sole job is to keep track of finances couldn’t even do that.”
Senior Abigail Becker said that it’s “insane” that Robbins is considering ending its four-year guarantee on tuition fees, which would make receiving an education at the UA even less accessible.
“From what I understand, the financial issues are partially due to Robbins trying to improve our rankings,” Becker said. “They’ve been pouring money into superficial projects rather than supporting the needs of the students that already attend the school.”
Rumblings about where cuts will be made have been background noise on campus for weeks, with some students and organizations taking to social media to make sure their voices are heard.
Eddie Elías Barron, a first-generation college student and ASUA executive vice president, shared on Instagram a letter he sent to Robbins urging him to put students' needs first.
"Any move to cut aid or scholarships is not only short-sighted but also detrimental to the reputation and long-term success of this university and the students it’s supposed to serve,” Barron, who also spoke during the Nov. 16 regents meeting, wrote in the letter.
Barron explained that cutting merit-based aid could compromise the quality of the student body, future enrollment, and more, the same year that the UA boasted its most diverse student body.
“The contemplation of reducing financial aid to students who deeply rely on it is not merely a cause for concern — it is a source of outrage, especially when athletic coaches and senior administrators' wages are at an all-time high,” Barron wrote. “Low-income students should not have to pay for a $240 million deficit that occurred under your oversight."
So far, Robbins has only committed to not instituting furloughs or retiree benefit cuts. The campus community is wary about what next week’s announcement could entail.
Until then, tens of thousands of UA students are left wondering how the cuts will impact them.
“I wish (administration would) be more open in their communication, but I’m not surprised they’re not,” said junior Lily Boyd.
If at first you don’t succeed: Janet Wittenbraker, who lost to Mayor Regina Romero in last month’s race for mayor, announced she is running for the District 3 seat on the Pima County Board of Supervisors. That seat is vacant now that longtime Supervisor Sharon Bronson retired.
Holding pattern: Tucson officials haven’t filed a petition in court yet asking for a recount of the Prop 413 vote, the Arizona Luminaria’s Carolina Cuellar reports. City Attorney Mike Rankin’s analysis of state law says the election doesn’t qualify for a recount under state law, despite a razor-thin margin. City officials asked for a legal opinion from Attorney General Kris Mayes before they take any action in court. Councilman Steve Kozachik said in his newsletter on Monday he expected to hear from Mayes within a week.
Asylum funding: The Pima County Board of Supervisors will vote today whether to accept $3.1 million from the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs to care for asylum seekers. The funds will go toward buying the Drexel Road facility, where asylum seekers are housed for a few days before they leave Tucson. The county leases the facility and officials estimate they will save more than $660,000 each year if they buy, rather than lease, the facility.
Sworn in: The city held an inauguration ceremony of newly reelected Tucson City Council members on Monday. You can read Romero’s remarks here, courtesy of the Tucson Sentinel. The council meeting scheduled for today won’t be held due to an expected lack of quorum.
More data incoming: Councilmembers Kozachik and Richard Fimbres couldn’t attend Monday’s inauguration due to a “bug going around,” Romero said. They’re not the only ones dealing with illness this time of year. To get a better sense of the situation, the Pima County Health Department launched a data dashboard for respiratory illnesses. The dashboard tracks local cases of the flu, RSV, and COVID-19 and it will be updated weekly, Health Department Director Theresa Cullen wrote in a memo.
Prices going up: Last year’s landmark deal over Colorado River water may have staved off an emergency, but it also might have laid the groundwork for problems in any future deals, Politico’s water reporter Annie Snider told KJZZ’s Mark Brodie. The problem is last year’s deal was based on a higher price for water. And since these deals often build off previous arrangements, any future deals might have the higher price as their starting point.
“And we are actually seeing some of those farm districts trying to renegotiate the pricing because they, you know, once they've gotten the $400 price point from the Biden administration, it's awfully hard to go back to a lower one,” Snider said.
$11,900: This year’s resident undergraduate base tuition for new students at the UA. Nonresident undergraduate base tuition starts at about $39,300.
If the UA does away with its four-year tuition guarantee, next year’s incoming resident freshman will likely pay a base tuition of $13,800 their senior year, when annual tuition for nonresident undergraduate students is projected to climb to $45,600, according to the Arizona Republic’s Sasha Hupka.
University of Arizona spokeswoman Pam Scott reached out after publication to provide an update on the school’s financial situation.
“As a result of accelerated spending from FY 2022 to FY 2023, the university experienced a decline of $140 million in cash and investments when comparing the days cash on hand snapshot of June 2022 to the one in June 2023,” Scott wrote in an email. “This is not a $240 million or more loss, as widely reported.”
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I have been reading this debacle story on the UA MIS-management of a lot of money (like $240-250 million!!!). Thanks Kyra Berg, Caitlin Schmidt and Curt Prendergast for your good work on this story.
I agree with today's article that the UA administration needs to cut from the top and cut from those that have the responsibility to properly manage public funds and student funds. Who was "asleep at the switch" and failed to see the river of money flowing out of the university coffers? This didn't happen overnight.
My first thought when I heard about the loss of money and administration "fire drill" to contain the financial damage was don't they have professional financial managers? Where have they been in all of this mess?
Now weeks later it seems that much of the administration efforts is trying to lay the blame somewhere else. Well the blame for losing $240 million rests with the top of the administration and any others that were and are responsible for this debacle. How long has the problem existed? This loss of $240 million certainly didn't happen over night.
The crux of UA's financial issues relate to days cash on hand, which relates to future operating costs, which are projections. Not enough attention had been paid to the budget modeling the university uses, the recent change to the model, and why the model was suddenly wrong.
I would love to see an in-depth look at this particular aspect of the issue. Why was the model changed? Who benefits from the change? How does the model impact operations and spending?