As blog readers will know, former UCLA CFO Agostini left us his budget book before he was fired for saying Very Bad Things about the budget as it was under previous managers (some of whom are still around).* Life is a learning experience and I am sure he won't be saying Very Bad Things in his new role as CFO of Culver City.
Anyway, his budget book divided up the university into "units" and provided information on revenues, expenditures, and (therefore) surpluses or deficits. So, who were the bad guys projected to run big deficits this current academic/fiscal year?
As we have noted in prior postings, revenues are a mix of state funds allocated and outside funds obtained. For example, the Academic Senate's revenue is basically what it allocated. If it can't stay within that budget, it could mean bad management. But it could also mean that more money needed to be allocated for the Senate to do its job. Athletics, in contrast, is supposed to be self-financing (but isn't). External Affairs includes fundraising. But most of those funds that it raises go to other units. The University Consortium of Schools supports relations with K-12 to help schools prepare their students for admission to UCLA. What is the adequate level of revenue for that function?
Despite these considerations, Agostini seemed to be taking an "every-ship-on-its-own-bottom" approach to budgeting: You're a Good Guy if you stay within your revenues or even run a surplus. You're a Bad Guy if you run a deficit.
Below is a table of Bad Guys defined (by yours truly) as units which had projected deficits for 2025-26 (as seen as of Sept. 2025) of 5% of expenditures. (The 5% figure is arbitrary.) Note, of course, that the absolute level of expenditures varies very widely among units. I used the percentage approach on the rough idea that cutting a given percentage would produce about the same "pain" for a unit, regardless of size.
While the med school barely makes the 5% criterion for the list, in absolute dollar terms, it far exceeds the others. Note that the med school's finances are intertwined in complicated ways with the hospitals and thus with patient revenues. Athletics is way over budget in percentage and absolute terms. Computing is way over in percentage terms. Is that the One IT thing gone wrong? Engineering, like medicine, is the home of significant research grants. Is the fact that both the med school and engineering are on the list above a reflection of the current troubles with the federal government? These are all interesting questions. But since Agostini ain't here to explain, they may never be answered.
One more thing: We have noted that there is missing data in Agostini's budget book, in the prior UCLA financial reports which he criticized as misleading, and in more recent information provided to the Academic Senate's Committee on Planning and Budget (CPB). The missing information is RESERVES. If UCLA has been running a deficit (expenditures > revenues), it must have been getting the money to finance that deficit from somewhere. If any organization runs an operating deficit, it either has to borrow the money from somewhere (which public sector entities such as UCLA are not supposed to do), or run down previously accumulated reserves. So what are those reserves?**
If you look, for example, at the state's budget information, you will find estimates of revenues, expenditures, and reserves. How much of an emergency a deficit is depends on your ability to cover it. Movie buffs may recall Citizen Kane's ability to cover the deficits of his money-losing newspaper:
Or direct to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9OUZNicTGU.
If you have lots of reserves relative to your deficit, you will have to make a correction but it can be done over a multiyear period to reduce the pain. If you don't have reserves, you have to fix the problem now.
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*Here is a listing of all our prior post-Agostini budget discussions on this blog:
https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/04/he-aint-here-for-budget-explanations.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/what-agostini-said-about.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/he-aint-here-for-budget-explanations_28.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/he-aint-here-for-budget-explanations_27.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/he-aint-here-for-budget-explanations_0514550503.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/he-aint-here-for-budget-explanations.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-budget-first-lets-preserve-then_0413053783.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-budget-first-lets-preserve-then_13.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-budget-first-lets-preserve-then.html; https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-budget-first-lets-preserve-then.html.
We have preserved past UCLA budget documents so they won't vanish at:
https://archive.org/details/ucla-budget-book-v-final-feb-2026.
In particular, the Agostini budget book is at:
https://dn720904.ca.archive.org/0/items/ucla-budget-book-v-final-feb-2026/UCLA%20Budget%20Book%20v%20FINAL%20Feb%202026.pdf.
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**The CPB analysis of "discretionary spending" (whatever definition you put on that phrase), suggests there is a starting "balance" and an ending "balance" in the account at the beginning and end of the fiscal year. See page 6 of:
https://dn720904.ca.archive.org/0/items/ucla-budget-book-v-final-feb-2026/UCLA%20Council%20on%20Planning%20and%20Budget%20%20Updated%20Report_%20Analysis%20of%20UCLA%20Campus%20Structural%20Deficit%203-20-2026.pdf
The chart shows a negative balance at the beginning of the 2024-25 fiscal year. It shows a projected negative balance at the end of the current fiscal year. If there can be a negative balance in this account, there has to be a source of reserves somewhere in the system that covers the overdrawn amounts. Where and what is it?
