The university is looking at $6.5 million in budget cuts for next academic year, according to Vice Chancellor of Administration and Finance Kathy Kaoudis.
2024 was the inaugural year of a budget strategy that Kaoudis created, where each dean and vice chancellor presented how much money they could cut from their department without hurting operations. Kaoudis said the process was successful and the departments came forward with $4 million that needed to be cut.
This collaborative budget process is being used again this year.
Chancellor Jennifer Sobanet said it’s important to use the talent the university has. “There’s so many brilliant people across all these colleges, all these divisions, and by working together to figure this out, we’re in a better outcome,” Sobanet said.
Kaoudis said the $6.5 million estimate could fluctuate depending on factors like merit raises. A potential 2.5% increase in salary for all faculty and staff would cost $2.7 million, which is factored into the $6.5 million estimate.
Kaoudis is working closely with the University Budget Advisory Committee to get feedback on the budget, especially the percentage of merit increases.
“UBAC feedback is so important, because if they say, ‘Well, we’re good with 1%, it’s a much lower dollar amount,” Kaoudis said.
The $6.5 million estimate includes mandatory minimum wage increases for all student workers coming in Fall 2025.
AAUP report
Sobanet said that a report conducted by the American Association of University Professors in February 2024 helped to further define her thinking when it comes to the budget.
The external budget analysis requested by AAUP found that UCCS was not in a budget crisis but rather was overinvesting in administration.
Since the report was released, several administrative positions have been reduced as departments have been combined. Sobanet said these decisions were not made in response to the AAUP report.
“I feel really strongly that we have an ethical obligation to be good stewards of [students’] tuition dollars and the state tax dollars, and that’s really where we’re trying to make sure we’re being thoughtful in how things are staffed and how things are supported,” Kaoudis said.
The AAUP report also found that data was being reported inconsistently. Sobanet said this finding led them to make changes to how data is reported.
“The AAUP report really focused on some data quality issues that we’d had over time, and we’ve put new procedures in place to make sure that our data, going forward, is accurate, timely and that we’re being transparent with it,” Sobanet said.
Sobanet said that as part of being transparent about the budget, her and her team are working on making data easier to understand.
“Data is not very helpful until it becomes information, and once it become information, we can make decisions off of that and take action on it and drive strategy,” Sobanet said.
Photo courtesy of the UCCS Photography Database.