The UC Regents approved the 2013-14 budget for the Office of President during their July meeting. The budget plans for $587.3 million in total expenditures for 2013-14, a 4.7 percent increase from the 2012-13 fiscal year.
Photo by Matt Mersel
The increases in unrestricted funding, money that the University can use as it sees fit, is mostly attributable to “proposed investments in systemwide initiatives designed to save money” by improving efficiency, according to the Committee on Finance report.
A direct result of this is an increase in the assessment imposed on campus expenditures by $35 million, a 12.8 percent increase from the previous year’s budget. This increase is independent and on top of the campuses’ own mandatory costs increases.
The UC Regents also approved a change in the process of producing and reviewing the budget for the Office of the President. The budget for the Office of the President was finalized late in the fiscal year, making it difficult and sometimes impossible for campuses to plan for the changes presented in the budget.
To counter this, the Regents approved the option of developing a “multi-year planning budget for fiscal year 2014-15 to be presented to the campuses no later than March 2014,” according to the Committee on Finance report.
Several increases in spending were incurred by the budget proposal, including a increase in the Office of the General Counsel budget by $1.26 million in the Office’s attempt to reduce outside legal costs.
New California Digital Library initiatives and the UC Historically Black Colleges and Universities (UC-HBCU) initiative received $1.74 million and $1 million, respectively.