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April 15, 2025
UAF faculty and staff,
In my message last week, I noted that while there have been some student visa issues across the
country, we had not seen similar experiences yet in »¨½·Ö±²¥. As you probably know from
President Pitney’s yesterday, we now know that there have been four students/graduates affected in the
UA System. The four individuals at UAA had either their student or Optional Practical
Training visas revoked. We still understand that no students at UAF have been affected.
The UAF Office of International Student and Scholar Services is continuing to monitor
and follow protocols under the guidance of the UA Office of General Counsel and is
a resource for any questions in this area.
For today’s message I wanted to share more about the budget. I recently received questions
from faculty and staff related to the potential impact of the changing federal landscape
on UAF’s budget, staffing, and future planning activities. I want to note that while
the potential impacts of federal changes are both known and unknown, other major drivers
to our budget position are known, including but not limited to increases in fixed
costs, contracts (e.g., custodial), benefits, utilities, and the rising costs of materials
for regular operational work. Additionally, we are watching for further increases
in construction or other costs due to tariffs. These are real costs as well. The coupling
of these budget pressures has led to several budget control measures that have evolved
over the last several months.
From a budget monitoring perspective, UAF has rigorous processes in place to oversee
annual financial activity (both expenditures and revenues). The UA Board of Regents
and UA System Office set annual targets for each university to meet, with respect
to unrestricted fund balances (UFB), and UAF reports on these funds.
In a typical fiscal year, UAF does four management reports over the reporting period.
These reports are the ways that school, college, and institute leadership communicates
each unit’s financial health to the Office of Finance and Accounting (OFA). The financials
are reviewed and monitored by OFA and communicated to Vice Chancellor Queen, me, and
the core cabinet. In FY25, things have not been typical – both with a very dynamic federal climate and higher than usual fixed cost obligations.
For these reasons I have taken additional measures to ensure that UAF can meet its
stated targets prior to the close of the fiscal year at the end of June.
On Jan. 10, 2025, even before the change in the federal landscape, I put out a memo to the Chancellor’s Core Cabinet requesting all units implement a 60-day hiring delay
effective Jan. 13, 2025. This guidance was based on the fall 2024 UAF financial management
report submitted by OFA, indicating that our UFB projections were roughly $3 million
lower than expected at that early point in the year. I recommended a mid-year adjustment
to curtail UAF’s largest expenditure category (labor), anticipating this delay in
hiring positions on unrestricted funds would help to generate the needed amount of
savings to meet projected targets.
Upon receiving the next management report in February 2025, federal conditions also
began changing rapidly. New federal guidance increased the level of uncertainty for
some student financial aid offerings, as well as research programs, services, and
indirect cost recovery (ICR), which is generated to support research administration
expenses and facilities. Projections showed a larger adverse impact on UFB, potentially
keeping UAF below stated UFB targets.
Therefore, I determined that more work was needed to make progress before June in
order for UAF to end the year with a positive balance between 2-4% of total revenues.
This guidance, given in my memo on March 11, 2025, asked units to curtail, delay, or eliminate discretionary expenditures before the
end of the fiscal year. OFA also moved to monthly management reports from the units,
ensuring that information available to our leadership teams is more regularly updated
as actions to curtail expenditures or increase revenues are put in place.
With these additional financial controls, we have already seen positive changes in
the UFB projections. Unfortunately, it has not yet been enough to cause me to lift
these fiscal measures. The level of federal uncertainty also warrants UAF to keep
these fiscally prudent steps to ensure adequate financial liquidity to manage through
times of high potential change.
As such, on April 2, 2025, I released an additional memo restricting non-essential travel, contractual services, and commodity operating expenditures
over $100,000, when funded by unrestricted sources. These budgetary control mechanisms
are intended for short-term use, and will not replace other longer-term efficiency
measures the university is and will continue to practice.
The next management report (for March) will be reviewed in the coming weeks, and many
Deans and Directors are actively meeting with VC Queen and the budget team to help
UAF meet UFB guidelines, and ensure stable and sustainable operations moving forward.
Even though these measures are in place, I understand this does not come without difficulty.
When evaluating the needs of your departments, it is important to understand that
we all play an important role in our institution's collective operations. Without
each other, we are not able to meet our vision of excellence through transformative
experiences.
Before I close this week’s message, I want to end on a high note. In my meetings last
week with leadership in the Department of Defense, Department of State, National Science
Foundation, U.S. House Energy Committee, U.S. Arctic Research Commission, and our
delegation, people in Washington are looking to the Arctic, and they are looking to
UAF. There is a lot of upside to these conversations for UAF and for our budget position.
I came back from these meetings confident in our opportunity not only to weather the
current change but to thrive through it and beyond. Furthermore, enrollment for fall
continues to be very positive, and this will have a positive impact on our budget.
Remember, we are all in the enrollment business. Increasing enrollment is the one
way in this uncertain time that we can continue to actively impact our future and
the future of those seeking education now and well into the future.
Thank you for choosing UAF.
Dan White, chancellor
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