Last month, Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi sat down for a budget forum with undergraduates. Next Friday, April 15, the chancellor will do the same with staff, faculty and interested members of the public, from 9:30 to 11 a.m. in the AGR Room at the Buehler Alumni and Visitors Center.

A live webcast is planned. Look for the link that morning on the UC Davis home page.

Joining Katehi on the panel: Ralph J. Hexter, provost and executive vice chancellor; Bob Powell, chair of the Academic Senate; and Kelly Ratliff, associate vice chancellor in charge of Budget and Institutional Analysis.

As they prepare UC Davis’ 2011-12 budget, here is some of what they are dealing with: a $73 million cut in state funding and $26 million in fixed-cost increases (for the UC Retirement Plan, health care and collective bargaining agreements, for example).

As stated previously, UC Davis’ total shortfall is estimated at $107 million for the fiscal year that begins July 1. Ratliff does not have any new numbers to share, but said the administration wants to keep staff and faculty apprised of the budget challenge.

“We had hoped to have more information by now, but we don’t,” she said.

The hang-up is at the state Capitol, where Gov. Brown and his fellow Democrats are in a stalemate with Republicans over the governor’s proposed tax extensions — something he would like to present to the voters in June, as a way to take care of more than half of the state’s estimated $26 billion deficit.

Brown and the Democratic-controlled Assembly and Senate have already trimmed the deficit by $11.2 billion — including a $500 million cut to the UC system.

Without the tax extensions, Brown will consider an all-cuts budget. This could put the UC system in an even bigger hole.

UC has already enacted an 8 percent fee increase for 2011-12, and, as of today, the Office of the President had not proposed an additional increase.

Nevertheless, the governor suggested Wednesday (April 6) that an all-cuts budget could lead to a doubling of UC tuition, to around $24,000 a year.

In response, a UC spokesman said the university is reluctant to raise fees again, but a tuition increase will certainly be an option if Brown signs an all-cuts budget. “All options would have to be on the table,” Ricardo Vazquez said. “None of them would be pretty.”

Meanwhile, UC Davis is taking a new, balanced approach to budgeting: Gone are the across-the-board cuts and differentials among the colleges and schools.

Instead, when Hexter sends out his budget planning letter around the end of April, he will direct the deans and vice chancellors to consider new revenue, efficiency improvements and cost reductions — based on a list of ideas put forth by the administration and the campus community.

In February, Katehi and Hexter identified 13 priority ideas that could cut the 2011-12 shortfall by up to $68 million.

For example, by admitting more nonresident undergraduates, the campus estimates it will bring in an additional $4 million in revenue. And by expanding and accelerating shared service centers, the campus could realize efficiency gains valued at $2 million to $3 million.

“Everything we do budget-wise will fit into our overriding goals of new revenue, efficiencies and cost reductions,” Ratliff said.

Budget chief on Insight

Associate Vice Chancellor Ratliff participated in a Thursday (April 7) radio discussion on the budget crisis in higher education, on Capital Public Radio’s Insight program. Listen to the podcast.

Advocacy efforts

UC President Mark G. Yudof joined the leaders of the California State University System and the California Community College for Higher Education Advocacy Day, Tuesday (April 5), at the Capitol.

At the end of an hourlong meeting, Brown told reporters: “The university is an engine of wealth creation and stripping it of its professors and its research in the way that an all-cuts budget would require is unacceptable.” Watch the video.

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