The Budget: First, let's preserve. Then let's question - Part 3 (more on expenses)

In our last iteration of post-Agostini budget examination, we noted a discrepancy between UC's version of UCLA's expenses and UCLA's expenses as reported in the pre-Agostini period. As blog readers will know, UCLA CFO Agostini was terminated after he told the Daily Bruin that UCLA financial reports for the period before he arrived were inaccurate. That is a Bad Thing for a CFO to say because it suggests that administrators, some of whom are still on the payroll, produced misleading figures. (Bond holders might also be upset.) Just before his fatal remarks, however, he did produce a budget book with new data.

In our prior analysis of reported UCLA expenses as reported by UC versus those reported by UCLA, we found a UC series running from 2014-15 to 2024-25.* More recently, prowling around on UC website, we found an older series said to be updated through May 22, 2025.** It reported different numbers for UCLA that were somewhat higher. Further investigation found the discrepancy was caused by omission of interest expenses in the more recent information. We have redone our chart using the older series that includes interest. See below:

Note again that the UC and UCLA series in the pre-Agostini period do not agree. Why? Yours truly doesn't know, except that the discrepancy isn't explained by the omission of interest. Note that the Agostini numbers and the UC numbers are very close. It may be that he was relying on the same sources that systemwide UC did in producing his budget book.

We will look at the revenue side of the story in a later post. (Revenue and expense data from the older series go back to 2003-04.) But keep in mind that yours truly is not a forensic auditor. All yours truly can do is preserve public budget documents so they don't disappear. The older UC-derived expense series documents - which, as just noted, go back to 2003-04 - have been added to our preservation site:

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

Perhaps these documents might be of use to the Academic Senate as it seeks to understand UCLA's current financial situation.

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*https://uclafacultyassociation.blogspot.com/2026/03/the-budget-first-lets-preserve-then.html.

**https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/about-us/information-center/revenue-and-expense-data.