Harvard's Budget Leak

Since we have been blogging about UCLA budget matters on and off (including yesterday), it might be of interest to look at another university's budget. 

Harvard operates on a more decentralized basis than UCLA. And it doesn't have its own hospital (although it has a med school). Apparently, for years, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) has released aggregate budgets: Income statements (Revenues, Expenditures) and balance sheet (assets and liabilities). But after FY 2025 had passed, it didn't make a public release of its financial report. Nonetheless, it provided the FY 2025 report to selected individuals, one or more of which leaked it to the Harvard Crimson. The Harvard Crimson then published the report.* You can find the report at:

https://ia903207.us.archive.org/35/items/ucla-budget-book-v-final-feb-2026/Harvard%20Faculty%20of%20Arts%20and%20Sciences%20financial%20report%20FY2025.pdf

The income statement in the report shows a deficit for FY 2025 of $7.7 million. How bad is that? Expenditures were about $1.8 billion so the deficit was 0.4% of spending. How much did FAS have in the bank (liquid assets) to cover the deficit? The balance sheet in the report says there are "deposits with the university" of around $2 billion. So presumably, nobody is panicking. Why there was an attempt to keep the report semi-secret is an interesting question.

UCLA needs at a minimum to turn out reports such as Harvard's on a reasonably timely basis. Yes, it is more complicated at UCLA because of the health enterprise, as we noted yesterday. But it isn't impossible.

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*https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/4/13/fas-unpublished-annual-report/.

Straws in the Wind - Part 319

From the Yale Daily News: The English department has nearly halved the number of sections of an introductory writing course, from 32 last fall to 17 this fall, as budget cuts constrain academic offerings at Yale. In addition to that decrease in the fall sections of English 1014, “Writing Seminars,” the number for English 1020, “Reading and Writing the Modern Essay,” has dropped from 17 to 14. The reductions are among the latest impacts on undergraduate academics of budget pressure in anticipation of an upcoming endowment tax hike. They come on top of decisions not to renew the contracts of several instructional faculty members, which the Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean described as being affected by budget “trade-offs.”

“These reductions were imposed upon us by the FAS Teaching Resource Advisory Committee, which has also imposed an increase in class size,” Feisal Mohamed, the English department’s director of undergraduate studies, wrote in an email to the News. “As a department, we are deeply concerned that the incoming class will not be able to find seats in introductory writing courses, and that those who do will receive less individualized attention.” ...

Full story at https://yaledailynews.com/articles/fewer-english-writing-sections-are-being-offered-due-to-budget-cuts.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 146

From the Harvard Crimson: The Harvard College Dean of Students Office is investigating a formal complaint against the Harvard Republican Club over potential violations of the College’s harassment and photography policies. College spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo confirmed in a Tuesday statement that the complaint had been referred to the DSO’s Student Engagement team, which handles cases of alleged misconduct by registered student organizations.

The complaint stems from a controversial April 4 post to the club’s official X account criticizing the Harvard Islamic Society’s Eid al-Fitr celebration in the courtyard of Quincy House. The post, which remains pinned at the top of the HRC’s page, included photographs and video taken at the event. It alleged that “Harvard’s historic Quincy Courtyard had been turned into a bazaar selling Hijabs, Burqas and Qurans,” that “large prayer mats covered the grass,” and that the event attracted “dozens of unvetted strangers who roamed outside student dorms.” It also claimed that speakers “blasted Islamic music.”

“Harvard has been captured,” it stated...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/4/15/hrc-complaint-investigation/.

The Incompleteness Theorem

Chart from former CFO Agostini's Budget Book     
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No, we're not referring to the mathematical incompleteness theorem. Our budgetary theorem says that if you don't consider the health enterprise, your picture of UCLA's financial situation will be incomplete. 

Former UCLA CFO Agostini, before he said Very Bad Words and got fired, left us with a budget book which we have been reviewing on and off in this blog.* Some of his Very Bad Words denigrated previous UCLA financial reports which - as blog readers will know - we have preserved so they won't disappear.** The most recent one, for fiscal year 2022-23, tells us that back then UCLA had revenues of $11.2 billion of which $3.7 billion came from the Medical Center.*** That was about a third of total university revenue, so it's hard to understand UCLA's fiscal situation if the Med Center is omitted. Moreover, there is a category called "educational activities" that appears to refer mainly to revenues from practice by Med School faculty. The combination of Med Center with these activities brings the total to around 60% of revenues. It's really hard to understand what is happening in any organization with six out of ten dollars omitted.

The budget book - from which the chart above came - updated the previous (denigrated) series by showing fiscal year 2023-24. It tells us that revenues were then $12.8 billion of which $4.2 billion came from the Med Center, i.e., an unchanged ratio of about a third.**** It refers explicitly to faculty practice revenues which again brings the total to around 60% of total revenues. So there is a consistency.

As blog readers will know, the Agostini budget book - after presenting the macro data - then divides the university into micro "units" (which we have reviewed in prior posts) for 2023-24, 2024-25, and a projection - as of Sept. 2025 - for the current year, 2025-26. But the units listed omit the Med Center and faculty practice, a big omission.

One interesting point: Agostini seems to have direct access to the unit data he presented that omits the 60%. But when he presents the full picture, i.e., the chart above, he footnotes the source as UCOP. It's almost as if he didn't have direct access to data on the missing 60%. It's almost as if that 60% is being reported directly up to UCOP by UCLA Health, and that UCOP then uses the figures for its systemwide reports. I'm not saying that is what happened in the past or is happening now. I am saying it looks that way. In any case, someone might want to ask UCLA's interim CFO whether she gets direct data from UCLA Health.

With all the excitement of university CFOs coming and going, there may be another direct source of budgetary information about the omitted 60% piece. Did you know that there is a UCLA Health CFO? In all the reports about the turmoil in Murphy Hall about CFOs, no one mentioned the UCLA Health CFO. In case you didn't know that there was one - and just in case the Academic Senate committee looking into budgetary affairs doesn't know - here is a (paid) profile from the LA Business Journal:*****

Tammy Wallace, CPA serves as chief financial officer of the UCLA Health System. In this role, she provides enterprise‑wide strategic and financial leadership for a $8 billion health system encompassing hospitals, clinics, physician enterprises, managed care, and joint ventures. Her scope of responsibility includes oversight of the revenue cycle, accounting and audit, financial planning and decision support, supply chain, mergers and acquisitions, and contracting. She plays a central role in evaluating internal and external market opportunities, driving enterprise cost-savings initiatives, supporting strategic growth, and advancing the adoption of innovative financial and operational technologies.

Under Wallace’s leadership, UCLA Health has strengthened its financial performance while continuing to invest aggressively in growth, access, and clinical excellence. She has led long range financial planning that aligns capital deployment and margin targets with enterprise growth and market positioning— which will enable more than $10 billion in capital investment over the next 10 years.

If I were on the Senate committee that is trying to understand UCLA's budgetary numbers, I'd definitely want to have a chat with CFO Wallace about the $8 billion for the sake of completeness. I'd want to know what goes to UCOP and what goes to Murphy Hall. That $8 billion, you might notice, seems to be about what Med Center + Faculty Practice would total.

She's in the UCLA directory. I checked. Just a suggestion...

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*Our most recent prior budget-related post is at https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/04/agostinis-every-ship-on-its-own-bottom_0145196952.html.

**https://archive.org/details/ucla-budget-book-v-final-feb-2026.

***https://archive.org/download/ucla-budget-book-v-final-feb-2026/UCLA%20Annual%20Report%202022-2023.pdf.

****https://ia903207.us.archive.org/35/items/ucla-budget-book-v-final-feb-2026/UCLA%20Budget%20Book%20v%20FINAL%20Feb%202026.pdf. 

*****https://labusinessjournal.com/custom-content/women-of-influence-health-care-2026-tammy-wallace/. The profile is part of "custom content" (i.e., paid for by UCLA).   

Straws in the Wind - Part 318

From the Yale Daily News: Sen. Rick Scott called... for the federal government to cut off funding from Yale over the Yale Political Union’s decision to host the left-wing streamer Hasan Piker, who previously suggested that Scott should be killed. Scott — a Florida Republican who spoke at the political union last semester in favor of the resolution “Buy American” — posted on X that the government should “IMMEDIATELY revoke” Yale’s federal funding. 

While Republicans were developing President Donald Trump’s 2025 “One Big Beautiful Bill,” Piker said during a livestream — responding to comments by House Speaker Mike Johnson that Republicans were focusing on Medicaid fraud — that “if you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott.” Scott was the chief executive of a hospital company that later paid $1.7 billion in settlements to the government relating to fraud...

Full story at https://yaledailynews.com/articles/senator-calls-for-government-to-revoke-yale-funds-over-ypu-speaker.

Another Closed-Door Regents Meeting Today

The Regents are having another closed-door meeting today to talk about the UC/UCLA problem with the feds. This one is scheduled for a whole hour rather than the usual 30 minutes. Does that mean something? Who knows?

TO THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 

Because the membership of the Advisory Group on Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (“Advisory Group”) includes five members of the Regents’ Governance Committee, there exists the potential for having present a quorum of a Regents’ Committee when the advisory committee meets. This notice of meeting is served in order to comply fully with pertinent open meeting laws. 

On Tuesday, April 21, 2026, there will be a Closed Session, Special Meeting of the Regents’ Governance Committee concurrent with the Advisory Group to discuss Research and Programs Funding Legal Issues (Closed Session Statute Citation: Litigation [Education Code section 92032(b)(5)].) The meeting will convene at 4:00 p.m. at 1111 Franklin Street, Oakland and adjourn at approximately 5:00 p.m. 

(Advisory Group members: Regents Anguiano, Cohen, Hernandez, Matosantos, Milliken, Reilly, Robinson, Sarris, and Sures)

Source: https://regents.universityofcalifornia.edu/regmeet/april26/meeting-notice_federal-april-21-2026.pdf.

Will Harvard Continue to Lead the Charge? - Part 145

From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard is quietly asking donors for $10 million gifts to establish new endowed professorships in a sweeping bid to reshape its faculty under the banner of “viewpoint diversity,” according to two people familiar with the initiative. The campaign, driven by Harvard’s top brass, aims to raise several hundred million dollars to support a new cohort of professors. If successful, the funding could bring dozens of faculty members to campus and drastically shift Harvard’s academic makeup. University officials have pitched the effort to major donors — conservative and liberal alike — as a way to broaden ideological representation across Harvard, two people said. But the fundraising target has repeatedly shifted after pushback from donors who viewed the scale as too ambitious, one person said.

Harvard Provost John F. Manning ’82 — the University’s second-highest administrator and a prominent conservative legal scholar — has led the effort, according to two people. Still, Harvard has carefully framed the project as a general push for “viewpoint diversity,” rather than a politically aligned initiative. Under a model being proposed, new hires would not be housed in a standalone institute. Instead, they would be appointed at the University level and embedded across schools and departments, per two people...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/4/15/harvard-donors-viewpoint-diversity/.

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From the Harvard Crimson: Harvard Provost John F. Manning ’82 pushed back Friday against a central demand of the University’s graduate student union, warning that a proposal to require third-party arbitration in Title IX cases could violate federal law. In an email to affiliates co-signed by Executive Vice President Meredith L. Weenick ’90, Manning wrote that the Harvard Graduate Students Union-United Auto Workers proposal would establish “distinct and separate set of non-discrimination, harassment, and anti-bullying processes” for union members — a system he said would conflict with both federal Title IX regulations and University policy requiring consistent procedures. The message, sent four days before the union’s planned strike, reflects Harvard’s firm posture on several major sticking points in negotiations that have stretched more than a year.

...[A] strike would mark a significant ratcheting up of an already tense bargaining cycle, marked by ongoing conflict over union representation. Negotiations began on uncertain terms, as conflict over bargaining observation resulted in the parties proceeding without ground rules. At the bargaining table, Harvard’s negotiators have responded to proposals for distinct non-discrimination and anti-bullying procedures by moving to standardize procedures across the University. The move would centralize control over reported cases and strip some existing protections, including the ability for the union to negotiate over proposed changes to non-discrimination policy. The divide extends to compensation. The University’s offer falls well below the union’s proposal, which calls for a roughly 74 percent increase for teaching fellows and a standardized $55,000 base salary for research assistants across disciplines, followed by annual five percent raises.

If the union moves forward with a strike on Tuesday, Manning and Weenick wrote that Harvard has begun contingency plans to maintain operations. They emphasized that while faculty and students may support the union, they will be expected to meet their academic obligations...

Full story at https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/4/18/manning-hgsu-strike/.