University of Arizona reduced budget shortfall by $15 million since January, CFO says
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In January, the University of Arizona had a projected $177 million budget shortfall for fiscal year 2024. On Thursday, Interim Chief Financial Officer John Arnold told the Arizona Board of Regents that UA reduced that number by about $15 million.
Its current forecasted shortfall is $162 million dollars.
Additionally, Arnold said every division on campus has been asked to brainstorm how they could reduce their budgets by 5%, 10% or 15%.
“We’re reviewing each of those for impacts on students, employees, the state needs, reputation of the university and revenue," he said. 'We’re trying to be very careful as we make a cost reduction; are we creating a revenue reduction at the same time and how do you balance those two?”
Arnold said big structural changes will take more time.
“We’re finding that a lot of our department heads don’t have the information they need to really see what’s happening at the university level and even at the college level, that they’re making financial decisions in isolation," he said.
He added that the online school UA acquired, UAGC, is no longer projecting a loss for 2024, due to an increase in revenue.
This comes just days after President Robert Robbins announced he would step down at the end of his term or as soon as another candidate is ready to take his job. Gov. Katie Hobbs has also criticized the university and ABOR over the budget crisis.
