U of A slashes more than $100 million of budget shortfall | News

TUCSON, Ariz. – (KVOA) University of Arizona leadership revealed, Thursday, the university currently has a budget deficit of $63 million. That’s down from the $177 million shortfall that was projected in January of this year.

The university maintains it slashed $114 million of deficit without academics seeing drastic cuts.

“The highest percentage of reductions came on the administrative side,” UA spokesman Mitch Zak said. “Really, the priority from day one was to protect our workforce, our tremendous faculty, staff and student leaders who are working on campus because that is the backbone of the university.”

Faculty Senate Chair, Leila Hudson, is pleased with the progress.

“The direction we’re going in is the correct direction,” Hudson said. “So, if we’re able to take a good $100 million chunk out of the first year, I’m sure that we will be able to deal with the remaining deficit over the next couple of years.”

The university welcomed 9,300 freshmen to campus last month to begin the fall semester. It is the largest and most diverse freshman class in UA history.

According to Hudson, a main concern for her faculty colleagues centers on increased workload.

Enrollments are up and our workforce is down, the real question then becomes how are our remaining workforce colleagues handling the workload,?” Hudson said. “There are a lot, a lot of concerns about that, that I think are not part of the budget process.”

The university’s new president, Dr. Suresh Garimella, starts Oct. 1.