It will take years for the University of Arizona to fully address a financial crisis that has created an estimated $177 million operating deficit, officials said Monday.
A 5% budget reduction, layoffs, administrative centralization and a reset of athletics spending are ahead, said John Arnold, who is acting chief financial officer at the university.
Arnold laid out what he had learned over the past month, including some causes and possible solutions for the deficit. Arnold — who is also the executive director of the Arizona Board of Regents, the body overseeing the state’s public university system — said the university caught the budgeting issues and should be able to correct course in the next 18 to 36 months.
“While that’s a big number, it’s fixable,” Arnold said of the operating deficit.
UA President Robert Robbins reiterated the message in a letter sent to the campus.
“Fixing these challenges will require timely, strategic and sometimes difficult decisions,” he wrote.