Committee Charge Letter
February 23, 2024
Dear Colleagues:
I write to request your service on a standing Budget Advisory Committee. This committee will provide advice and recommendations to me and Chancellor Larive on various campus budget issues. The specific charge of the committee is to:
- Provide ideas and feedback on budget-related issues and approaches with a primary focus on what is best for the university.
- Review and make recommendations to me and Chancellor Larive, as appropriate, on the following:
- FY24 carry forward and other proposed reductions
- FY25 proposed spending reduction plans
- Multi-year savings target-setting approach
- Savings target allocation methodology
I anticipate that our attention to addressing our structural deficit in core funds will be a multi-year effort from the current year (FY24) through FY28. There is some uncertainty about this time period due to uncertainty about the state budget environment and our successes in restraining expenses and growing revenues to allow us to move our budget toward balance more quickly. By working together and keeping the university’s best interests at the center of this process, we can ensure that UC Santa Cruz emerges from this budgetary challenge on a firm financial foundation that will help propel us to future success.
I know that your participation in this effort will take a significant amount of your time and energy, and I thank you for your service on this important committee.
Sincerely,
Lori G. Klezter
Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor
Budget Advisory Committee Principles
All Budget Advisory Committee Recommendations should:
- Advance or preserve campus goals and strategic plan themes
- Preserve and minimize impacts to the tripartite mission of teaching, research, and public service
- Maintain status as an R1, HSI, AANAPISI, and AAU institution
- Take a people-centered, equity-oriented approach
- Prioritize reductions that will yield ongoing savings
- Prioritize realistic and timely revenue-generating positions/functions/activities
- Take into account total costs (e.g., total employee compensation including benefits, startup, etc.)
- Reduce workload expectations where personnel resources are being reduced, and avoid propagating the attitude that “we now need to do more with less”
- Where applicable, support modest one-time investments that will yield ongoing revenue gains and/or expenditure reductions
- Support long-term financial sustainability
- Encourage transparency in decision-making processes through clear, consistent communications, campuswide and at the divisional level
Committee Membership
Ed Reiskin
Committee Co-Chair; Vice Chancellor, Finance, Operations, and Administration and CFO
Herbert Lee
Committee Co-Chair; Vice Provost, Academic Affairs
Kamala Green
Associate Vice Chancellor, Staff Human Resources/Chief Human Resources Officer
Raphe Kudela
Academic Senate Committee on Planning and Budget, Chair
John Macmillan
Vice Chancellor, Research
Alex McCafferty
Campus Budget Director
Amber Blakeslee
Associate Vice Chancellor, Budget Analysis and Planning
Bryan Gaensler
Dean, Physical and Biological Sciences Division
Elisabeth Willoughby
Assistant Dean, Planning and Finance, Social Sciences Division