UC SAN DIEGO
Campus Budget Office
UC Budget Conference 2007: Table Topic Discussion
Student Fees/Financial Aid – October 22, 2007
Facilitator: Pat Romero
I. Course Materials Fees (CMF)
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UCB - How do other campuses manage the CMF process? Berkeley’s system for managing CMF
is cumbersome; there is a staff committee but most of the work falls under the Budget Office.
There are departments who don’t understand that campus authorization is needed to establish the
fee, and students questioning fees after they’re implemented.
UCSD - We have a campus CMF committee, but have also assigned contacts in the Registrar’s
Office, Accounting, Student Billing Services etc. to help departments set up the fees and to answer
relevant questions. We send these units an implementation guide with timeline on an annual basis.
When the fee is approved the department is responsible for notifying the registrar’s office and
requesting the update to the campus catalog and schedule of classes; they’re also responsible for
contacting Accounting to set it up in the system. Departments submit a report every year on CMFs
collected for review/analysis.
UCSB - CMF process is intentionally very cumbersome to discourage new CMF proposals.
Campus gets 1-2 requests per year. The approval process involves three committees:
o Income and Recharge committee- technicalities behind CMF, calculations.
o Executive Committee- decides if they want to send forward, consider if the students should
expect the fee.
o Student Fee Advisory- protects student interests.
o Once approved, it’s an official CMF subject to ongoing review. 10-15% increase CMF
involved Income and Recharge Committee, but Budget Office takes care of small increases.
Pat Romero- Campus should consider collecting year-end income and expenditure data. Although
OP has not asked for reports of CMF for years, if it becomes a large issue that gets someone’s
attention i.e. legislators, then there will be a need to pull historical CMF data.
Pat Romero - Does the system wide policy need to be revised? Considering refreshing the policy
for clarity, i.e. when it is appropriate to charge CMF for expenses related to printing of classroom
materials, lab manuals as well as labor related expenses.
Suggest bringing back Budget and Planning Manual and revising/updating policies getting ready
for another wave of retirement.
Issue: Santa Cruz does a cycle once a year, but many requests come during off-cycle. UCSC
combines CMF & miscellaneous, difficult to determine if it’s a recharge or miscellaneous fee.
Takes time to apply rather vague CMF policies and interpret what qualifies as a CMF; would like
to streamline the cumbersome process and better define policy for CMF committee.
UCB - CMF can be used to pay services rendered by contractors (non-UC employees) such as
lifeguards, models for art courses, musicians for music courses. Technology has changed – is
CMF an appropriate charge for usage of lab that provides expensive software needed for the
course?
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II. Summer Sessions
 Summer Financial Aid: This policy needs to be revisited due to the resource issue created by
current financial policy requiring the home campus to provide summer financial aid. I.e. More
UCSB students are enrolled at other campuses for the summer so students pay fees to another
campus, but UCSB still provides the financial support. This resource imbalance is happening to a
number of other campuses so policy should be revisited.
 Summer Fee: Should we move forward with implementing Educational and Registration Fee for
the summer?
III. Financial Aid Allocations
 Issue: Campus financial aid offices need to know aid amounts to make packages well before fee
increases are approved. Assumptions can be made to provide estimates for planning purposes but
politically, OP doesn’t like to do this for fear that it appears to be an endorsement (of a certain
level of fee increases). After Regents pass the budget in November, calculations could be made.
However, OP’s current dilemma is Budget staff is down by 1/3 and key people in the OP Financial
Aid Office are gone.
IV. Joint Degree Programs
 Romero - turbulence regarding the joint UC/CSU degree programs results from the negotiations
being done by program people (systemwide executives) who do not fully understand the financial
consequences, making it difficult for campuses that have to implement the program. Once an
MOU is established, would be extremely difficult to reopen.
 The existing program UC/CSU Joint Doctor of Education (JEdD) has exposed us to a variety of
issues. Students pay UC fee which is higher and get UC financial aid. There are issues with
students paying UC campus-based fees and receiving services provided by UC campus while their
classes might be held at a CSU campus. There is another joint program that is currently under
planning discussion, the UC/CSU Joint Doctor of Audiology (AuD).
V. Communications
 UCSD - For uniformity and consistency, should there be a designated point of contact at all
campuses for communication of fee increases?
 Romero- [Pat Romero] is usually the contact at OP. However, if budget office is not the driver,
miscommunication possible on both ends. Example: Regents approved increases last spring,
President’s Immediate Office asked campuses to send notices to students so this process was
handled by public information people. It was a surprise to campus Budget staff as well as OP
Budget staff.
 Other difficulties include external requests that typically go through OP General Counsel office.
The attorney would generally contact program folks and leave Budget out of the loop. A good
example was the Student Health Request that went through the program folks at OP and campus,
then later on campus Budget Office was asked to confirm the numbers.
 UCSB – Budget Office is central clearing office that gets news then notifies appropriate units such
as Registrar/other impacted departments, they notify students. It would be hard to have one
central contact due to differing priorities (what a department deems number one priority might not
be number one for the budget office). Solution may just be to try to communicate and coordinate
better.
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VI. Campus Based Fees
 Romero - Need to improve process for reviewing ballot language and overall approval process.
o Ballot language is often confusing and risks misinterpretation. Interested in developing a
process so that OP has an opportunity to review and provide input to this language prior to it
being finalized.
o Current OP approval process is being lengthened from 2 weeks turnaround to 2 months. This
is due to review process being more extensive with everything now. Also need to allow
sufficient time for fee publications, notifications and billing. Notice will be going out
regarding timeline.
o Issue with low voter turnout: when the measure is passed by majority, it doesn’t represent the
majority of student opinions. Certain student groups could sway the outcome. Need to work on
voting threshold and approval of large fee increases for future student population.
o UCSB - Ballot language needs to be more specific with regards to increases versus the existing
base. Suggest that campuses administer fees centrally.
VII. Mental Health and Registration Fee
 Pat is not at liberty to share the proposed 2008/09 Registration Fee increase but noted that more
likely, it will be above 7% (higher than the Ed Fee increase). The reason for this is OP has to
ensure there is sufficient funding to cost adjust Registration Fee funded programs. In the current
year, the 7% Registration Fee increase was split up into 3% for mental health program and the
remaining 4% were used for Registration Fee program cost adjustments. 4% is not sufficient to
cover everything needed.
 Need to ensure the Registration Fee income designated for mental health is used for this purpose.
UCSD has set up a separate fund number for tracking purposes.
 It is anticipated that the mental health funding plan will involve multiple years (number of years is
unspecified), not 2-3 years as proposed by the systemwide Council of VCSA. The COVCSA
proposed a total additional income of $40M or 25% to support the mental health funding plan.
 No decision with regards to using these mental health funds for capital improvements, although it
is possible to use Registration Fee funds for capital improvements in general.
VIII. Improvements to Various Allocation/Reporting Processes
 Educational Fee: Any talk of going back to the original use/definition of Educational Fee?
Difficult to explain the Ed Fee redistribution; also masks how much the state is funding UC.
 In years to come, many issues will resolve themselves. Large items such as the block allocations
will be first to “lose its mystery”. Want greater confidence in what OP is doing. Not all campuses
would be happy knowing how it was done, but transparency is also important. Similarly, the
capital process is another one that should be demystified.
 The 2008/09 Regents Budget will be significantly streamlined.
 Mike Clune and Pat Romero are reviewing the RBT tables with the goal to consolidate and
streamline future RBT process. Hopefully by next summer (2009/10 RBT process) there will be
fewer tables and the data requests will be more relevant. For the current RBT (2008/09 process)
OP will not require RBT 11 submission in November/December but will ask for this report at the
end of the year.
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In Attendance:
Chau Tu
UC San Francisco
Wanda Mar
UC Berkeley
Christine McUmber
UC Davis
Stephanie Mayer
UC Riverside
Jessica Gallione
UC Santa Cruz
Todd Lee
UC Santa Barbara
Jacquelyn Diaz*
UC San Diego
Pat Romero
Office of the President
*Note taker
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