Divert $4.3 Million from the Freedom Center - Help Relieve UA’s Budget Crisis!

This fall, UA’s Chief Financial Officer Lisa Rulney discovered that the University has a $240 million deficit! This huge and completely unexpected shortfall means that, instead of having 146 days of cash on hand when the shortfall was discovered, the University had only 97 days of cash on hand. This is a budgetary disaster!

UA gets most of its income in the fall. It spends down that income over the ensuing months at a rate of $6 million a day! A mere 97 days of cash on hand is not even enough to stay afloat until the end of the Spring Semester! The Arizona Board of Regents (ABOR) has given UA’s Administration a deadline of December 15th to devise a plan to solve this problem.

KOCHS OFF CAMPUS! WANTS TO HELP SOLVE UA’S BUDGET CRISIS. HERE’S HOW:

You may recall that, at our request, Governor Katie Hobbs transferred the Freedom Center’s $4.3 million state budget line item to the UA’s general fund. Without that line item, the legislature’s “intention” that the money go directly to the Freedom Center does not have the force of law. As part of UA’s plan to solve the budget crisis, the $4.3 million in the University’s budget  (money that the Republican majority in the Arizona State Legislature “intended” to go to the Freedom Center) MUST be left in UA’s general operating budget.

According to an October 19, 2023 document released by UA in response to a public records request, the Freedom Center is now sitting on more than $7 million of taxpayer money! The Freedom Center also has additional funds from private donors, including $250,000 from the Koch Foundation in 2023 alone. With almost TWO YEARS of tax funding in reserve, the Freedom Center is far more solvent than the UA as a whole.

We believe President Robbins has the responsibility to protect the UA from the worst impacts of this shortfall by using all the means at his disposal. We ask him to divert 4.3 million in state tax dollars from the Freedom Center to help fill UA’s budget hole. The Freedom Center does not need another $4.3 million. The UA needs it more!