Frequently Asked Questions

We expect to move this fall but the final date has not been determined yet. We will first move all of the furniture and set up the space and then there will be a move-in date for VC Finance. We expect this will be in the fall.

1608 Fourth St

Berkeley, CA 94710

The VC Finance teams will have space on the second floor.

Heidi Van Yang - Business Operations and Communications, Immediate Office

Kristina Lisle - Executive Assistant, Controller’s Office

Jane Christen - Executive Assistant, Financial Planning & Analysis and University Business and Partnership Programs

There are two, connected sections dedicated to VC Finance on the second floor of the Fourth Street office. On one side, there are traditional cubicles and on the other, there is a more open-space style set up with conversation and collaboration areas and cubicles. Most of the cubicles will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis. There are zoom rooms and conference rooms that will be available to be reserved.

Access for VC Finance staff

There are two main entrances to the second floor, where VC Finance will be located. The primary one that staff use is the entrance from the parking lot that leads to the elevators. This entrance has key card access. The second main entrance is at street level from Fourth Street. Currently, these doors are kept locked and there is no key card access. Once you are on the second floor, there are doors with key card access that lead into our division's section. There is also a key card access door between the two sections that VC Finance will occupy. All VC Finance employees will have access to both of our areas. 

Access for visitors

The main entrance is currently locked and there is no one at the front desk. If you have a visitor to our Fourth Street location, you will need to plan to meet them outside of the building and bring them in with you to your meeting through the parking lot entrance. Currently, per P&C guidelines, no non-UC Berkeley affiliated visitors are allowed.

We expect to be able to move into our new building in the fall. Staff should coordinate their schedule and their return to the office with their managers.

Yes, there is a parking lot next to the building that accepts C and F parking passes. P&T is offering daily parking permits ($16 for a C pass and $12 for an F pass) and a temporary monthly rate. Visit the Parking and Transportation website to learn more about parking permit options.

The VC Finance Office is committed to following the guiding principles outlined by our People & Culture team, in compliance with local governance, to safely return to the workplace. Please review the P&C COVID-19 resources page for information on returning to the workplace.

Yes, there is a kitchen space designated for VC Finance in our area and also a shared kitchen area with a vending machine on the second floor. The VC Finance kitchen space will be shared by all VC Finance staff. The details of how it will be organized and supplied are being finalized. 

There will be communal areas both with and without tables in our office space. These shared areas will be subject to safety guidelines outlined by People & Culture and UHS.

The Immediate Office is working with your team leaders to identify who has existing ergonomic accommodations. We are incorporating these existing needs into the space planning for our new location. 

If you identify an ergonomic need when you begin working in a new space, please discuss it with your manager.

There will be minimal file storage on site. Per the direction from Associate Vice Chancellors Mike Riley and Chris Stanich, our teams should be transitioning to digital file storage wherever possible. 

Because there are not assigned desks, the personal paper files you bring with you into the office each day will need to be taken home with you when you leave. If you believe you will need to use the shared file cabinets to store paper documents on-site, please reach out to your Executive Assistant.

We’ve set aside rooms specifically for remote meetings and calls. Additionally, there are conference rooms that can be booked as needed for in-person or remote meetings. 

No. Only the private offices have assigned seating. Most of the rest of the workstations are open and can be used on a first-come, first-serve basis each day. If there are cubicles assigned for a specific purpose, this will be indicated.

Many of the workstations are traditional cubicles in an open-space floorplan, similar to the way University Hall 655 or the first floor of Warren Hall are laid out. In part of the new space, there are also some seating areas designed for collaborative work. We’re currently determining what kind of technology will be available at each workstation and will update this question when it is finalized.

Visit the Parking and Transporation website for a list of public transportation options between campus and Fourth Street. 

The nearest BART station is North Berkeley BART. There is a weekday shuttle between North Berkeley BART and the Fourth Street building during the morning and evening commute hours to accommodate those who use BART. Hours of operation: 6:40am – 9:20am; 4:10pm – 6:10pm. Anyone with a Cal1Card can use this shuttle. 

The Fourth Street building is four blocks from AC Transit stops on University Avenue (AC Transit 51B) and six blocks from bus stops on San Pablo Avenue (AC Transit 52). A transbay bus (Z) also runs from San Francisco to the Fourth Street area.

There is lockable bike storage in the basement at Fourth Street, with key card access. 

Please note that these schedules may be affected by the pandemic restrictions, so please visit the parking and transportation page or the local transportation websites (AC Transit, BART)  to verify availability.

We’re transferring our existing mail codes and they will remain the same. Mail services keeps a list of the codes on their website

Yes, there are several local restaurants within walking distance from our Fourth Street building. There’s a website dedicated to Fourth Street businesses where you can find information on restaurants.

Some highlights include:

• Artis Coffee 

• Peet’s Coffee 

• 4th Street Bagel

• Cafe M

• Bette’s Oceanview Diner

• Tacubaya

If you need to work on campus before we've moved to our new location, please let your manager or supervisor know.

Managers and supervisors should work with the Immediate Office (vcfinance@berkeley.edu) as needed to make arrangements for those that want to be in the office.

If you do plan to be on campus, please follow the guidelines on the UC Berkeley Coronavirus webpage. 

The budget process was launched the week of August 10. A timeline for the process is available on the budget process page. Generally speaking, the process will take approximately two months to complete.

Yes, a section of the narrative template will be devoted to this. The $1.5M pool will be available to address cases where extraordinary relief is justified. This is not an opportunity for divisions to submit funding requests for a common unmet need or to pursue a new initiative - as would have been the case in previous years. Should you believe your reduction will cause severe inequity or hardship, you can submit a funding request for these resources.

Yes.

There will be four templates used during the budget process: a three-year planning template in the form of a SRECNA, two supporting templates through which you are asked to specify planned expense reductions and use of reserves, and a narrative template to provide context for your financial plan. The budget call letter and guidelines provides more specific details on the templates.

The budget targets used over the past several years, based on a net surplus/deficit model, have been discontinued in light of the financial impacts associated with COVID-19.

We’ll provide guidance on carry-forward balances in the call letter and budget process guidelines.

The fiscal close dates are set by UCOP and so will remain the same for the most part. We’ll communicate any updates to the dates.

The People & Culture website provides guidance on exceptions to the hiring freeze.

To help address our financial challenges the Chancellor and EVCP are considering the deferral of capital projects on campus.

We loaded what was in the permanent budget as of December 31, 2018 to July 2019 (FY20) in CalPlan to account 71110. If divisions later make changes to the permanent budget, these changes should be noted with 74101 transfers in CalPlan as FP&A does not make these late changes for the divisions. The general allocation will be updated for academic units once Form A has been returned and uploaded.

This is the $5.0M referenced in the Budget Call letter that is being provided as a one-time adjustment to help defray the cost of the 3% merit rate for staff salaries. For academic units, these amounts were loaded in CalPlan from the central commitment database, and the amounts can also be seen on the divisional Intersection Detail Reports (IDRs). For non-academic units, the decision was made after the database load to CalPlan, so these amounts do not show up on the IDRs; however, affected units were emailed with their respective amounts on February 19th. These amounts were entered manually in CalPlan to the benefitting units in the month of September in account code 71302.

​You can find the detail for these in the Intersection Detail reports (IDR) posted to your divisional folder in the CFO Shared Division Folders (Google doc), under the FY2019-20 Budget Process Folder, in the sub-folder Intersection Detail Reports. Besides an IDR for FY19 Forecast (for items outstanding for quarters 3 and 4) and FY20 Operating Budget, there are also IDRs for FY21 and FY22.

Please contact the DFL concierge at dfl_concierge@berkeley.edu with a subject line of multi-year planning process and identify the commitment not captured in the multi-year template

While the UCRP assessment is included in CalPlan when the month has been actualized, CalPlan does not include the mechanic to plan for account 53709 at the moment (due to timing of the release of the information related to the assessment). The amount may be immaterial to any particular division, and benefits are in general, over planned in CalPlan (for various reasons). DFLs may enter a DeptID adjustment if they want to include the amount in their plans.

The Intersection Detail Reports (IDRs) for FY19 and FY20 were run as of January 16, 2019 to help clarify to DFLs what was loaded to CalPlan (along with the updated general allocation amount for FY20). Any changes to commitments made after that date (e.g., EVCP TAS) will not appear on the IDRs. The affected units were emailed and the amounts were updated manually in CalPlan. IDRs for FY21 and FY22 were run as of February 20, in conjunction with release of the Multi-Year Template.

The rev gen template should be used for both new and growth in existing revenue programs.

This is in reference to tracking the “below the line expenses/Reserve investments” that were approved as part of the FY19 Budget Process. Please refer to the FY19 Budget approval letter sent to your Dean last year to understand if below the line expenses were approved for your unit. If they were, they should be tracked using the management code 3I00MC in the actuals ledger as well as in CalPlan, regardless of the account code used. This step will enable us to measure your progress against divisional targets (those expenses will be excluded when calculating performance to Net Operating Surplus/Deficit targets).

Please pay special attention to transfer account codes - if you use the management code on a transfer account code, please code the management code on both sides of the transaction.

The budget target represents the amount the Net Operating Surplus/(Deficit) line needs to be improved by to meet your FY20 Operating Budget Net Surplus/(Deficit) Goal. Each divisional finance leader was emailed their specific division’s FY20 Operating Budget Target and Goal. We have included additional language in Appendix 1 of the FY20 Operating Budget Guidelines.

You should still align the revenue seasonality with the expense seasonality since most of the Contracts & Grants are cost reimburseable. If you have some grants that are not cost reimburseable and you have some idea of how they will be invoiced, you can adjust for that if it is material, otherwise have the revenue follow the expenses.

We have not sent out any other breakdowns in the past for account 71220 outside of what is included in your Intersection Detail Reports (IDRs), which can be found in your division folder on the CFO Shared Division Folders (Google doc). For detail on the EVCP TAS allocation amount, your Dean will soon be receiving a letter outlining the updated TAS amount.

The other items should be included in your Intersection Detail Reports (IDRs) which you can find in your division folder on the google drive.

You fix this by adding "=" in front of your number and writing it out in decimal format. So if you're entering $300,000 then you would input "=300". Or if you're adding 3%, then type in "=.03". For more detail, review the multi-year template job aid. There are Smart View training resources on the CalPlanning website and there are office hours in University Hall, room 670.

Requests for final position funding entries with effective dates after 3/1 (for MO) and 3/10 (for BW) that are handled by BRS must be submitted by 6/3.

Please note: for Position Funding updates handled by departments/units, 6/19 (BW) and 6/24 (MO) are the final UCPath Pay Confirm dates.

 Run the CalAnswers General Ledger Detail Report.

CBR is now managed by OP and is processed in UCPath and is no longer based on GL account code.

• Earn Codes CBR exclusion
• UC Berkeley DOS to earn code mapping

If you have questions about CBR please contact centralresourcemanagement@berkeley.edu. 

Separate them by looking at the title codes.

Suspense chartstrings will not be excluded from the deficit clearing process. Units will need to clear all L4-fund deficits by fiscal close per policy.

UCPath has standardized the CBR and Vacation assessments. If an Earn Code is assessed CBR than then it will likely be assessed Vacation. Please note that CBR is assessed on salary net of vacation taken.

• Earn Codes CBR exclusion
• UC Berkeley DOS to earn code mapping

UCPath has standardized Z-coded compensations system-wide. For a list of all new Z Earn Codes, please see the list of Earn Codes CBR Exclusion. We are working with other UC's and UCPath to address the Academic Stipend vacation assessed issue. Since this is a system-wide issue it will take some time to address.

• Earn Codes CBR exclusion
• UC Berkeley DOS to earn code mapping

CBR was assessed on PostDoc Fellows (title code 3253) in March 2019. Previously PostDoc Fellows have been exempt from CBR based on Berkeley’s policy. CBR is now managed by OP and is processed in UCPath. Per discussion with OP, Berkeley was allowed to continue excluding PostDoc Fellows from CBR assessment through FY19.  To reverse March assessment, we recorded a manual reversing journal in March and will update the subsidiary table in BFS for the system journal to post correctly in April. We requested a configuration change in UCPath to fix this issue and it was implemented.

• Look up historical chartstring usage
• Review Position Funding in UCPath
• Identify a new funding source (if appropriate)
• Corrections in UCPath should include processing a Direct Retro as well as updating the Position Funding.

Using the Cal Answers GL Detail Report

• Select the appropriate period
• Filter for the two salary account codes 50200 & 51200
• Enter Fund Code value of 69995
• Enter the Allocation deptID value

Any GL detail report that shows CF1 values will work.

No. This is managed by the Controller's Office. If you have questions about this, you can contact controllers_ucpath@berkeley.edu. 

In the future journals will post as they come in, with direct retros and off-cycle payments being processed several times a week. Right now we are experiencing numerous data issues with UCPath delivered journals and we have to manually fix them which is a time consuming process. Due to this, we will post all journals on a bi-weekly and monthly cycle through May. As we resolve these issues we are hoping to be able to post once a week. Once the issues are resolved the journals will post automatically as they come in.

Use the payroll cycle schedule as a reference. https://www.ucop.edu/ucpath-center/_files/mypath/calendar/payroll-processing-schedule-2019.pdf. Please allow a couple of days after GL Post Confirm date to see payroll journals in BFS.

The implementation of UCPath affects HR and Payroll Leave Accrual reports. These reports will have data available as of Friday, March 8 from pre-UCPath and then the data will remain static as of that date while we work to transition the data source from Human Capital Management (HCM) to UCPath.

General Ledger reports, Financial Management reports, and PI Portfolio, as well as the associated ad hoc reporting, are unaffected. 

The current Cal Answers Payroll Expense Detail report will continue to be updated with funding transfers for pre-UCPath pay through September.

The Cal Answers team has posted the planned release schedule to the website. This schedule is subject to change, because it is dependent on when we can get sample data from UCPath to test. 

The first release (May 2019) will include an Employee ID lookup dashboard and the updated HR Workforce Detail dashboard.

In Cal Answers, you can currently include job code and job code description, which can help with categorizing jobs.

The Cal Answers team has put the suggested update (include appointment type in the Payroll Expense Detail report) on their list of upgrades. 

There is a UCPath production processing schedule available on the UCPath Center webpage. 

• Payroll expense transfers processed in PPS for pre-UCPath payroll entries (transactions for pay periods ending 03/09/19 and prior) will continue to be posted once a month in BFS with the PPS data available for reporting in the legacy Payroll Expense report in Cal Answers. You can find the schedule by going to https://controller.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/optrs_deadline_schedule_jan_thru_sep_2019.pdf
  
• Payroll transactions from UCPath will post to BFS at least three times a month, after each monthly and bi-weekly pay period. You can find the schedule by going to https://ucpath.berkeley.edu/tools-resources/transactional-user-resources and clicking on the link for "UCPath Center Payroll Processing Schedule."
  
  

• The payroll expense transfers processed in PPS will also appear in the legacy Cal Answers Payroll report within the first four business days of the month.

The wild card module allows each campus to specify a customized set of important topical items of interest to campus constituents. At Berkeley, recent topics include students' RRR week and final exam experiences (2011), undergraduates' connection to UC Berkeley through graduation and beyond (2009), advising and mentoring (2008), diversity (2007), and technology (2006).

UCUES is a collaborative effort overseen by representatives of nine UC undergraduate campuses and the UC Office of the President.

UCUES is governed by a research protocol approved by UC Berkeley's Committee for the Protection of Human Subjects. Each of the other UC campuses submits this protocol to its respective institutional review board with an intent to rely on CPHS's approval.

From time to time new survey topics of interest are included in UCUES as part of the special topics, Wild Card, module. UC Berkeley affiliates may contact Sereeta Alexander(link is external) at the Office of Planning and Analysis at Berkeley to propose additional items or topics for inclusion. Affiliates of other UC campuses may contact their respective campus representatives.

There are many good reasons to participate in this research project. To list a few:

1. Make a difference. UCUES is your chance to influence policy in your major, your college, throughout campus, and across the UC system. It is the only effort of its kind to systematically collect feedback from all undergraduates about what is working well, what is not working well, and what is important to you. Your responses will be used by faculty and staff in a variety of ways to help evaluate and improve the experience of current and future undergraduates.
2. Be counted. As with voting, your opinions do not count unless you participate. Administrators need to hear from a broad array of students to obtain an accurate and well-rounded perspective.
3. It's easy. It only takes about twenty minutes to complete. You don't even have to leave your computer.
4. Win great prizes. Each year we give out thousands of dollars' worth of prizes, from iPods to cash prizes to bookstore gift cards, to a lucky group of randomly selected participants. The earlier you complete the survey, the more chances you have. But you have to participate to win.

No, not directly, since a completely different and non-overlapping subset of students is assigned to each module. Items from modules can only be directly correlated with the items from the core.

No. UCUES responses are confidential but not anonymous, which means individual student identifiers are collected along with each set of responses, but the responses are never reported in such a way that would allow identification of individual respondents. Non-anonymous data collection also allows survey responses to be matched to individual-level institutional data from university records and across survey administrations to create multi-year panels.

1. Systematic administrative uses
   • UCUES responses about the academic experience in the major are reported each year to each department for its majors. The results are also analyzed in detail by the Financial Policy and Institutional Research Team for academic program review, the periodic in-depth evaluation of every instructional program. Students are asked to rate how satisfied they are with such aspects of their major as instruction by faculty and graduate student teaching assistants, advising, equitable treatment by faculty, and the availability and quality of courses. These responses are also compared to other majors and to prior years' data to examine trends over time. UCUES data have helped shift academic program review from a predominant focus on faculty and graduate students to one of increasing attention to the undergraduate experience.
   • UCUES results regularly inform the decisions of administrators in everyday situations, from answering specific questions (for example, what percentage of students are employed off campus or how many hours undergraduates study per week) to providing a more complete and nuanced picture of the everyday experience of a diverse population of undergraduates.
   • UCUES responses are a key component of the UC system's public accountability initiative, which is akin to the Voluntary System of Accountability template proposed by AASCU and APLU (formerly NASULGC).
2. Non-routine administrative uses
   • Evaluating specific student programs, such as the Fall Program for Freshmen and the Incentive Awards Program; Transfer, Re-entry, and Student Parent Center; and the Professional Development Program.
   • Simple reporting of topics of interest to campus constituents (such as participation in Education Abroad Program and other study abroad programs).
   • Calculating performance metrics for campus programs and services (such as the University Health Services and the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive).
   • Providing facts and figures for official communications, including speeches and publications.
   • In-depth assessment of an administrative unit's programs (such as the Career Center).
   • Evaluating admissions policy (for example, pp. 79-83 of the 2008 UC Systemwide Academic Senate's review of the BOARS' Revised Proposal to Reform UC's Freshman Eligibility Policy.
   • Demonstrating to lawmakers that proposed legislation to mandate community service would be unnecessary because many undergraduates are already involved in voluntary activities.
   • Tabulation of responses for academic departments (majors) and colleges for self-study and assessment.
3. Scholarly research
   • Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) conferences and publications, as a program of the Center for Studies in Higher Education.
4. Instruction
   • Sociology 105, Introduction to Sociological Methods (uses subset of UCUES data for computer data analysis-intensive course)
   • Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program (undergraduates conduct original empirical research using UCUES data)

It depends on the items and the time period. Although early versions of UCUES date back to 1996, the core set of items has remained relatively fixed only since 2006. Some items go back before that time, while others do not. It has been long established that responses to survey items are highly sensitive to even small changes in the question wording or response options. As a result, tracking non-identical UCUES items across years is unlikely to lead to valid comparisons and is not recommended.

Currently there is no comprehensive database of which items appear in which administrations of UCUES, but the complete set of questionnaires to date is available at the UCUES main page.

ll undergraduates are asked a common core of questions about time use, student development, academic engagement, experience with their major (for upper division students), campus climate, and background characteristics (demographics).

Following the core, each student is asked a set of questions from one of several topical modules, determined by random assignment, on a subject such as

• academic engagement,
• civic engagement (politics and community service),
• student development (moral and psychological),
• student programs and services,
• globalization, or
• a "wild card" group of items unique to each campus.

The form of each module, except the wild card, is identical across all campuses in a given year. This arrangement allows greater breadth of topics and more discretion over content without increasing the length of the survey.

It is administered to the entire population (census) of students, rather than a sample.

It integrates institutional data from university records to provide basic demographic and educational variables such as ethnicity, age, and grade point averages.

The modular format magnifies the scope of the survey without increasing completion time and jeopardizing response rates. Each student is asked a common core of items about academic engagement and demographics followed by a randomly assigned topical module. Consequently, administrators and researchers have a broader view of the student experience covering not just academics but also civic engagement, moral and psychological development, and experience with campus programs and services.

The wild card module allows each campus to specify a customized set of important topical items of interest to campus constituents. At Berkeley, recent topics include students' RRR week and final exam experiences (2011), undergraduates' connection to UC Berkeley through graduation and beyond (2009), advising and mentoring (2008), diversity (2007), and technology (2006).

It contains costs, very effectively, by employing a strictly web-based survey tool and relying on email as the primary form of contacting students.

It allows analysis at the level of small groups such as majors and specific demographic groups (such as sophomores, student athletes, or student parents). This feature is critical for incorporating UCUES results into periodic assessments of academic departments (particularly academic program review).

It enables a modular structure to ask a greater number of items about a broader array of topics.

It yields sufficient numbers of repeated observations of the same students to create multi-year panels with repeated observations for the same individuals.

All students have chance to participate, promoting a sense of involvement (every voice is heard) and making recruiting and participation a campuswide effort.

All regularly enrolled undergraduate students eighteen years or older on April 1 of the year of the survey are invited to participate. A very small number of limited enrollment/2nd degree students and minors are excluded from the eligible population. (The excluded group constitutes less than one percent of the total undergraduate population.)

Since 2004, UCUES has been administered annually at Berkeley and every other year (even numbered years) at the other UC undergraduate campuses. Earlier versions of UCUES date back to 1996.

The precise figure varies from year to year and by campus, but at Berkeley it has been:

• 2011: 30% (6,982 out of 23,656)
• 2010: 45% (11,203 out of 24,967)
• 2009: 37% (9,016 out of 24,379)
• 2008: 50% (11,833 out of 23,904)
• 2007: 51% (11,957 out of 23,278)
• 2006: 48% (10,717 out of 22,430)
• 2005: 52% (11,673 out of 22,450)
• 2006: 48% (10,717 out of 22,430)
• 2007: 51% (11,957 out of 23,278)
• 2008: 50% (11,833 out of 23,904)
• 2009: 37% (9,016 out of 24,379)
• 2010: 45% (11,203 out of 24,967)
• 2011: 33% (7,750 out of 23,656)
• 2012: 39% (9,732 out of 25,203)
• 2013: Survey not administered

The numerator is the number of undergraduate students who logged into the survey system and submitted their responses. The denominator is the population of eligible undergraduates.

Not every student answers every item presented, and in general some items (such as parental income and open-ended items that require a typed response) are more likely to be skipped than others. One departure from common practice in reporting web survey response rates is that the denominator includes students with inactive email addresses on the assumption that they may have been contacted about the survey through other means such as advertising, direct communications from academic departments and other units, or word of mouth.

Opinions vary greatly as to what makes a "good," "high," or "adequate" response rate and what relationship, if any, there is between response rate and the accuracy of the results. While conventional wisdom holds that low response rates yield biased results and that increasing response rates tends to reduce bias, recent research suggests that neither of these claims is necessarily the case. See, for example:

Groves, Robert M. 2006. "Nonresponse rates and nonresponse bias in household Surveys." Public Opinion Quarterly 70:646-675. [Also see other articles from the same special issue.]

Keeter, Scott, Carolyn Miller, Andrew Kohut, Robert M. Groves, and Stanley Presser. 2000. "Consequences of reducing nonresponse in a large national telephone survey." Public Opinion Quarterly 64:125–48.

Krosnick, Jon A. 1999. "Survey research." Annual Review of Psychology 50:537-67.

Visser, Penny S., Jon A. Krosnick, Jesse Marquette, and Michael Curtin. 1996. "Mail surveys for election forecasting? An evaluation of the Columbus Dispatch poll."Public Opinion Quarterly 60: 181-227.

Institutional data, the administrative and transactional data collected by the university, are already collected and maintained at the individual level in application, registration, and degree databases and matched to the survey results.

Among the most important institutional variables are:

• ethnicity
• age
• admission status (transfer admit or new-from-high school freshman admit)
• term and year of admission (used to calculate year in school or unofficial class level)
• units earned (used to calculate official class level)
• date and title of degrees earned (for students who have graduated)
• UC grade point average
• major(s) (e.g. Integrative Biology) and college(s) (e.g. College of Letters & Science)
• location of permanent address
• international student status
• high school grade point average and SAT scores
• high school's Academic Performance Index ranking
• participation in selected university-sponsored pre-college outreach and preparation programs

A few items already available in institutional data, such as gender, parental income, and parental education, are repeated in the survey to achieve greater completeness and detail. Summary financial aid data are likely to be included in future releases of UCUES data.

For administrative uses, any institutional data that identify individual students by student ID number can be linked to the UCUES data, from a roster of an intramural soccer team to a list of students who graduated from a particular high school or community college to a list of scholarship winners.

UCUES, the University of California Undergraduate Experience Survey, is an omnibus survey of the experience of undergraduate students enrolled at the nine University of California undergraduate campuses.

Survey results are matched with institutional data from campus records to provide a detailed portrait of students' backgrounds, academic and co-curricular activities, goals and aspirations, experience with academic and administrative units, self-assessments of gains in academic and social skills, interactions with other students, engagement in community service and civic activities, perceived obstacles to academic success, and many other topics.

The results are used both for administrative purposes – to evaluate and improve programs and policies affecting undergraduates – as well as for scholarly research. For example, Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) conferences and publications, as a program of the Center for Studies in Higher Education

Yes. The assignment of a depreciation charge during the useful life will permit the recharge center to have sufficient funds at the end of the useful life for purchase of a replacement piece of equipment.

The University definition for equipment must be met. Presently the item must have a purchase price of at least $5,000 and a useful life of more than a year. The item must be used in the recharge activity to have its charges assigned to the respective fund.

No. If the equipment was originally bought on federal funds, the recharge unit cannot depreciate the value of equipment and assign the respective costs to the recharge fund.

For capital leases, lease payments can be allocated to the recharge operating fund provided that the amount of the lease payments is roughly equal to the amount of depreciation that could have been charged for the same period and the University has title to the asset. For operational leases, the lease payments should be allocated to the recharge operating fund.

If the equipment was originally bought on non-federal funds, you can make the assignment and the subsequent depreciation. If the equipment is used only part of the time for recharge activities and the remainder of the time for non-recharge activities, only that percentage of the equipment time on the recharge activity should be assigned to the recharge unit.

The useful life tables are prepared by the Office of the President and can be found at the Useful Live Indices for Equipment Depreciation page. Useful lives can also be found in the campus equipment inventory tracking system, BETS. To request a new classification of equipment with new useful lives, complete the Equipment Useful Life Update Form (Word) and submit to gao@berkeley.edu.

No. The equipment purchased for use in a recharge activity must be charged out to that activity through annual depreciation charges over the useful life of the equipment or financed through a capital lease.

The University operating policies require the department to purchase the initial equipment for the newly established recharge activity. If it is an ongoing recharge activity and the amount of the equipment purchase is small, you can finance the purchase from amounts in the recharge accounts current reserves. If it is an ongoing recharge activity and the amount of the equipment purchase is substantial, you should finance the purchase through a capital lease or seek outside seed money from other sources.

Divisions have been informed of their FY2017-18 budget improvement targets and each division will now consider how to implement their targets within their respective division.  

An iterative budget process has been underway since December 2016. At a retreat in February, the Deans and Chairs discussed the budget process, opportunities, and challenges. Since then, the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO) has discussed budget issues regularly with the Council of Deans, deans in small groups, Vice Chancellors, Chief Administrative Officers, Divisional Finance Leaders, the Board of Visitors, the Berkeley Foundation, Academic Senate leadership, and student and staff committees. We have tried to conduct our work with transparency and the greatest degree of participation possible.

The goal of this year’s budget process was to learn and better understand the needs and objectives of each division so we could complete the hard work of meeting our deficit reduction target of $54 million in a thoughtful, strategic, and collaborative manner. We should note that the budgetary targets within the multi-year plan were established in concert with the Office of the President; the targets within the plan are non-negotiable.

The OCFO established a Target Setting Working Group composed of nine Divisional Finance Leaders  (from seven academic divisions, Intercollegiate Athletics, and Real Estate) to recommend a methodology for budget target-setting. We tasked the working group with providing exclusions and establishing a baseline from which to set budget improvement targets. Exclusions represent the campus’ highest priorities and were exempted from the budget target calculations. The budget improvement target is the amount by which a division must improve its net operating budget between FY2016-17 and FY2017-18.  

After constructive debate and discussion, the working group delivered recommendations that guided the exclusions to the base (FY2016-17 operating expense budget). Here are the items we agreed to exclude:

• Contracts & Grants: all expenses included under the fund category “Contracts & Grants” which includes federal, state, and private funding for things like research, training, and fellowships
• Academic Salaries & Benefits, including teaching activity: includes Ladder Faculty (fully and partially funded), as well as Other Academic positions and temporary academic support (TAS); does not include summer salaries
• Scholarships & Fellowships: all expenses included in the account category “Scholarships and Fellowships,” which includes fee remission and financial aid
• Activities funded with Student Services Fees: charged to all registered students and funds services that are necessary to students, but that are not part of the university’s programs of instruction, research, or public service
• Faculty Research on non-Contracts & Grants dollars: all faculty-managed funds including start-up, retention, and BEAR Grants
• Purchased Utilities
• Student Health Insurance Program funding: financial obligations of claims paid on behalf of student premiums
• Sexual Harassment Prevention Program

We shared the target methodology with the Council of Deans, Academic Senate leadership, CAPRA, Vice Chancellors, Chief Administrative Officers, and Divisional Finance Leaders in full transparency. Divisions were advised that they could meet their targets with either incremental net revenue or cost savings, and adjustments to targets were made after individual meetings with divisional leadership. The adjustments reflect academic priorities such as managing the impact of enrollment growth, anomalies in target methodology such as School of Optometry clinical operations, operational needs such as uninterrupted facility services, and investments in philanthropy. A full listing of division budget decisions will be posted on cfo.berkeley.edu.

The targets that divisions have been assigned are highly differentiated because of the way in which we have calculated the base (as described above) to which the targets were applied. Budget improvement targets for instructional divisions are about 1% of FY2016-17 budgeted total expenses; those for administrative, research, and service divisions are between 4% and 6%. We should note that many instructional divisions are meeting their targets almost entirely from increased revenues, while non-academic divisions are meeting their targets primarily through staffing and service-level adjustments.  

The budget process concluded on Friday, June 23 with allocation letters being distributed by the Chancellor-designate with all final decisions on performance targets and annual allocations. The OCFO prepared the letters on her behalf and they were sent out to divisions (Deans of Schools and Colleges, Vice Chancellors, Vice Provosts, Head Librarian, etc.). Campus-level budget decisions are now final. Each division will communicate directly with their faculty and staff to explain how these decisions will be distributed throughout the division and how strategic plans will be implemented. As divisional decisions are made, we plan to have a coordinated communication plan about any adjustments to service levels that will impact faculty, staff, or students across campus.

The annual budget target for FY2017-18 is part of a larger five-year plan. Our reduction target for FY2016-17 was $40 million, which was primarily achieved through cost reductions. We will be able to make more progress against our deficit in FY2017-18 because of a concerted effort toward revenue generation programs; the reduction target for FY2017-18 is $54 million and will be achieved through an equal balance of revenue generation (52%) and budget reductions.

We had hoped to meet a significant amount of this year’s deficit reduction budget improvement target with increased revenues and we exceeded our initial goal. Based on the budgets submitted by the divisions, 52% of the targeted $54 million in deficit reduction will come from increased revenues including private gifts. This is excellent news because it means that every dollar we make in revenue generation is one less dollar we’ll have to reduce in expenses. We will continue to seek ways to increase revenues to offset the need to make cuts. In addition to over $8 million in private gifts, FY2017-18 revenue plans include new or expanded academic programming in University Extension, Summer Sessions, Concurrent Enrollment, Self Supporting Graduate Professional Degree Programs, and via Professional Degree Supplemental Tuition.

Divisional leadership will be accountable for their budgetary performance throughout the fiscal year so any needed strategic and corrective actions can be taken in a timely and effective manner. To achieve that goal, we distributed quarterly financial reports in FY2016-17 to help ready the campus for this new environment. We will continue to use our quarterly review process to assess and manage every division’s financial performance against the established targets and expectations. The quarterly review process helps campus leadership accurately assess if we're on track to meet our financial goals. These quarterly reports enable leadership to identify performance opportunities and challenges and make any needed material modifications to existing plans.  

In addition to financial performance monitoring, we will track the specific performance of each revenue generation program. To support the campus in these new activities, a new department - New Academic Ventures at Berkeley (NAV-B) - is being established to vet agreements, develop and maintain an inventory of best practices, review and execute requests for consulting and other services, and develop analysts who can quickly construct data-driven market/demand assessments.

As in years past, merit, internal equity, and market-based adjustments will continue for non-represented staff or in accordance with represented staff collective bargaining agreements. Also, with the approval of the Office of the President, the senior leadership of the campus has agreed to forgo any salary increases. The categories of seniorstaff who will not be eligible for compensation increases this year include: Senior Management Group members, Vice Provosts, Deans, and employees classified at the Manager 4 level.

In addition, this year rather than having a separate 1% equity program and 2% merit program, we will have a simpler-to-manage 3% salary program pool that will be based on merit, equity, and market factors:

• Merit: a pay for performance approach based on the employee’s performance rating

• Internal equity: the employee’s salary relative to the campus-wide average salary for the employee’s job title

• External market: the employee’s salary relative to the midpoint of the salary range for their grade (which is based on market data)

Division leadership will provide further information regarding their division’s procedures for administering this year’s salary program. The guidelines provide additional information, including eligibility criteria for salary increases, as well as important deadlines. In the meantime, FAQs are available online. Additional questions may be sent to compdesk@berkeley.edu or handled by your HR Partner.

We are anticipating campus service adjustments and there will be further, detailed communications once divisions have decided which services will be impacted and how. A common focus in planning across non-academic units was to prioritize services or systems that support life safety, enable teaching and research, or are required to operate the university.

For example, facility maintenance will ensure that fire alarm and sprinkler systems are operational, that fume hoods and building HVAC function properly, and that electrical systems and basic building systems are working. IST will prioritize campus network services, protect network and data security, maintain campus systems such as the financial and payroll systems, and provide campus email service. CSS priorities are fundamental HR, payroll and research administration services. For students, there may be an increase in response and/or wait time for a variety of student services.

Faculty recruitment and retention remains one of the campus’ highest priorities and we will continue to invest in this.

Berkeley will continue to reshape our workforce in a way that best aligns with our needs, values, and available resources. To the extent that divisions are not able to meet budget targets for coming years, one way to lower costs is headcount reduction through attrition or, when necessary, through layoffs. Workforce decisions are made by divisional leadership.

Following the recent release of the State Audit of the Office of the President, the Governor has withheld $50 million of funding appropriated to the university in the 2017-18 Budget Act. This funding will be released to the university once it meets certain specified conditions. At this point, it is unclear how, if at all, the Governor’s decision will impact the Berkeley campus budget. The Office of the President is making every effort to meet the conditions set by the Governor to release the funding. It is also not clear how the Office of the President would decide to allocate the $50 million to Berkeley and the other UC campuses should the Governor decide that the university has not met all of its conditions.

Berkeley maintains a scenario-based financial model to anticipate changing political conditions. As each condition changes, the model is updated for decision making. Our current projections indicate that we can reach a balanced budget by FY2019-20. We have assumed that in-state tuition will grow at 2.5% each year and that nonresident supplemental tuition will grow at up to 5.0%. State support is projected to increase by 4.0% in FY2017-18 and FY2018-19 and 3.0% to 3.5% thereafter. We have also assumed that nonresident enrollment will remain capped at 24%. Salaries are assumed to grow at 2.0% and gradually increases over time to reflect enrollment growth projections. The model also assumes interest expense increases in 2021 as capital loans repayments start and debt deferral ends.

Our budget is comprehensive and includes academic, administrative, auxiliary operations (such as student housing and Cal Performances), and intercollegiate athletics programs, including all divisions reporting deficits. For FY2017-18, divisions were able to meet their budget targets either through revenue generating programs or cost saving activities. For example, Athletics was directed to improve its financial performance by $4.6 million over FY2016-17. We will continue to partner with divisions in deficit positions to make improvements to their net operating results throughout FY2017-18 and beyond.

Each division has a different capacity to generate revenues. Some revenues, like those generated by Self Supporting Graduate Professional Degree Programs, accrue directly to divisions. Others, like undergraduate and graduate tuition, accrue to the center and are divided among the many competing needs of the university. All divisions contribute to the generation of revenues either directly or indirectly. For example, while there is less of a market for Arts and Humanities Self Supporting Graduate Professional Programs, they - and Social Sciences - are among the largest contributors of teaching across campus and generate a significant share of the campus’ tuition revenues.

This is in reference to tracking below the line expenses that were approved as part of the FY18 Budget Process. Please refer to the FY18 Budget approval letter sent to your Dean last year to understand if below the line expenses were approved for your unit. If they were, they should be tracked using a management code. 

"Reserve investments” expenses are tagged with the new Management CF1 code 3I00MC. This step will enable us to measure your progress against divisional targets (those expenses will be excluded when calculating performance to Net Operating Surplus/Deficit targets) and report to UCOP appropriately. 

The budget target represents the amount the FY18 Operating Budget Net Operating Surplus/(Deficit) line needs to be increased by to meet your FY19 Operating Budget Net Surplus/(Deficit). For example, if your FY18 Operating Budget Net Surplus/(Deficit) was ($435K) and your target is $356, then your FY19 Operating Budget Net Surplus Deficit will need to be ($79K) or better to meet your FY19 Operating Budget target. We have included additional language in Appendix 1 of the FY19 Operating Budget Guidlines to include examples of this. 

They have stopped marking the revenue line items for Contracts & Grants. With that said, you should still align the revenue seasonality with the expense seasonality since most of the Contracts & Grants are cost reimburseable. If you have some grants that are not cost reimburseable and you have some idea of how they will be invoiced, you can adjust for that if it is material, otherwise have the revenue follow the expenses.

We have not sent out any other breakdowns in the past for account 71220 outside of what is included in your FY19 Operating Budget IDRs (Intersection Detail Reports). The FY19 Operating Budget IDRs have not changed except for the change I made to the EVCP TAS allocation amount. If you are referring to the IDRs, these can be found in your Division folders on google drive. For detail on the EVCP TAS allocation amount, your Dean should have received a letter outlining the updated TAS amount.

The other items should be included in your IDRs (Intersection Detail Reports) which you can find in your Division Folder on the google drive. 

You fix this by adding "=" in front of your number and writing it out in decimal format. So if you're entering $300,000 then you would input "=300". Or if you're adding 3%, then type in "=.03". For more detail, review the multi-year template job aid. There are Smart View training resources on the CalPlanning website and there is a special Smart View office hours on Tuesday, April 10 from 1pm - 3pm in University Hall, room 670. 

We loaded what was in the permanenet budget as of January 31, 2018 to July 2018 (FY19) in CalPlan to account 71110. If divisions later make changes to the permanent budget, these changes should be noted with 74101 transfers in CalPlan as FP&A does not make these late changes for the divisions.

This is because $4.5M is being provided in FY19 as a one-time adjustment to academic units to help defray the cost of the 3% merit rate for staff salaries. This was entered in CalPlan to the benefitting units in the month of September in account code 71302.

​You can find the detail for these in the Intersection Detail reports (IDR) posted to your divisional folder in google drive. Besides an IDR for FY18 and FY19, there are IDRs for FY20 and FY21.

Please contact the DFL concierge at dfl_concierge@berkeley.edu with a subject line of multi-year planning process and identify the commitment not captured in the multi-year template

Non-Academic revenue generation plans will be reviewed by the applicable Vice Chancellor/Associate Vice Chancellor, VC Finance, and NAV-B, then approved as part of the budget review process. Philanthropy programs will be vetted by University Development and Alumni Relations.

Academic revenue generation plans will be reviewed by VC Finance and NAV-B and approved as part of the budget review process. Philanthropy programs will be vetted by University Development and Alumni Relations.

Michelle McClellan, AVC of Constituent Programs at University Development and Alumni Relations (mcclellan@berkeley.edu), is a resource to divisions for their philanthropic planning and in managing their fundraising leads.

The BIT represents the amount by which each Division will need to increase their planned Current Year Operating Budget Net Operating Surplus/(Deficit) amount as compared to their planned Prior Year Operating Budget Net Operating Surplus/(Deficit) Goal.

DFLs of non-academic units: Submit templates to the DFL Concierge at dfl_concierge@berkeley.edu and Scott Shireman, Chief Operating Officer of University Extension and Director of New Academic Ventures at Berkeley (NAV-B) at scottshireman@berkeley.edu, and their respective Vice Chancellor or Associate Vice Chancellor. Non-Academic revenue generation plans will be reviewed by the applicable Vice Chancellor/Associate Vice Chancellor, VC Finance, and NAV-B, then approved as part of the budget review process. Philanthropy programs will be vetted by University Development and Alumni Relations.

We will not have final fall enrollment numbers until October. Once we do we will be able to assess the impact on the budget.

The director of athletics, the department’s highest-paid coaches have agreed to voluntary salary cuts for 2020-21. The UC Office of the President has not yet provided guidance on personnel actions for career staff.

Just like every department and the campus as a whole, Cal Athletics is not immune to the effects of the pandemic. Since March, department leadership has modeled different scenarios and is forecasting as much as a $50-55 million impact on its budget if fall sports do not compete at all this year. The impact could be reduced considerably if football and other sports return in the spring. The athletic department’s plan to meet its budget objectives include adhering to a campus-wide hiring and merit-pay freeze; voluntary pay reductions for the athletic director, its highest-paid coaches; cutbacks of operations and administrative budgets by at least 10%; and consideration of a low-interest loan to help close any remaining budget gap after other budget-mitigating steps are put into place. The intent is not to make permanent changes because of an anticipation of a return to normal operations within 12-18 months.

That is actually not correct. Football produces significant net revenue, from television rights, ticket sales, merchandising, concessions, contributions, and sponsorships. In addition, football games provide opportunities for thousands of students, alumni, and the entire Cal community to come together for a common purpose and gather on Saturdays in the fall. With a nearly 140-history, football is truly a part of the fabric of our university and gamedays are opportunities to celebrate the entire campus.

IA supports its 30 teams and 850 student-athletes with an annual budget of approximately $100 million. It supports its budget through media rights (i.e. television), ticket sales, philanthropic contributions, endowment income, and sponsorships, among other revenue streams. The department and the campus reached a six-year budget agreement in 2019, which provides for a dramatic reduction of institutional support through 2025. In order to be transparent, the plan has been shared with the Chancellor’s Cabinet and DIVCO. Chancellor Christ explained her perspective in arecent column that appeared in the 2019-20 winter edition of California Magazine. The athletic department met its budget target for the 2020 fiscal year despite the cancellation of spring sports in mid-March through a strict management of its expenses.

Not at this time. Updates about plans for instruction can be found at: https://coronavirus.berkeley.edu/instruction/.

You can review a full listing of fees at https://registrar.berkeley.edu/tuition-fees-residency/tuition-fees

The New Student Programming Fee is not new and is charged every year - in fact, we are happy to report that this year it was lowered from $475 to $380.  This fee covers expenses related to Golden Bear Advising, Golden Bear Prep, Golden Bear Orientation, and Getting your Bearings. You will be assessed a fee of $380 on your first semester CalCentral bill. As orientation is mandatory for all new undergraduate students, so is the fee. If applicable, look to your financial aid package to see if this fee will be covered by financial aid in the form of the “New Student Grant.” If you have financial concerns related to the New Student Programming Fee, please complete the New Student Needs Questionnaire.

The programming fee covers:

• Golden Bear Advising and Golden Bear Prep pre-arrival modules Golden Bear Orientation programming (virtual programs in August 2020 and any future in-person programming).

• Getting Your Bearings programming (virtual programs in fall 2020 and any future in-person programming).

• Please refer to our Office of the Registrar Tuition & Fees page for more details on student fees.

For more information, visit https://orientation.berkeley.edu/policies/.

UC Berkeley’s largest and most pressing expense is faculty and staff compensation, which grows almost every year due to the need to provide merit/cost of living increases and to ensure workforce competitiveness. Other major expenses include deferred maintenance and seismic corrections that are needed to improve the safety and quality of our campus buildings. As the oldest UC campus with the oldest infrastructure, these expenses are greater at Berkeley than at other UCs.

UC Berkeley’s most significant cost comes in the form of employee compensation, in terms of both faculty salaries to support instruction/research and staff salaries to provide operational support for the campus. Therefore, operating costs, which are largely constituted by the compensation of the staff who provide this support, do not go away because the campus is currently working remotely. Moreover, in some instances, operating costs are actually increasing due to remote operations (e.g., the need for more technology) and the direct impact of COVID-19 (e.g., facilities cleaning, virus testing). Also, in order to preserve as many jobs as possible, Berkeley is working to redirect staff whose workload may be reduced by a closed campus into areas where workload has increased due to the virus.

UCOP froze merit increases for career, non represented staff throughout the system. The campus cannot act in contradiction to that decision.  At the same time, represented staff previously negotiated collective bargaining agreements that include cost of living increases. We are asking managers to take note of extra work being assigned to any of their team members and do whatever is possible to support them. At the same time, many, perhaps most, of the thousands of staff who are now working from home are dealing with significant challenges and hardships. 

First, after the mitigation steps we have taken, the deficit for the current fiscal year is projected to be approximately $65 million. This is a complex question.  Staff who work with students needing visas are supported through campus funds and we will take steps to ensure they can continue to fill this important function. With regard to visas that apply to visiting scholars and employees, there are two units involved: the Berkeley International Office (BIO) and Berkeley Regional Services (BRS). BIO is a recharge unit that will continue to provide its services.

Your BRS HR Business Partner, following the lead of BIO, will continue to help scholars seeking visas in collaboration with the BRS Visa Team and BIO.

We are still using a shared services model. The campus adapted the model to move to regional service centers in the last couple years, and this still gives the economies of scale that we need to operate effectively.

This year’s UCPD budget has not been finalized yet. The decision-making process will take into account the diverse perspectives of the campus community, and will be guided by the Chancellor’s recent message about campus values and objectives regarding community safety.

This year’s UCPD budget has not been finalized yet. The decision-making process will take into account the diverse perspectives of the campus community, and will be guided by the Chancellor’s recent message about campus values and objectives regarding community safety.

This year’s UCPD budget has not been finalized yet. The decision-making process will take into account the diverse perspectives of the campus community, and will be guided by the Chancellor’s recent message about campus values and objectives regarding community safety.

This year’s UCPD budget has not been finalized yet. The decision-making process will take into account the diverse perspectives of the campus community, and will be guided by the Chancellor’s recent message about campus values and objectives regarding community safety.

This year’s UCPD budget has not been finalized yet. The decision-making process will take into account the diverse perspectives of the campus community, and will be guided by the Chancellor’s recent message about campus values and objectives regarding community safety.

Yes, see the COVID-19 Information for Graduate Students web page for the information about not counting Spring 2020 and Fall 2020 towards the six semesters.

We understand that this policy can create confusion for some students. With this policy, students who don't pay the required 20% by the deadline may be temporarily dropped from their classes. Any students who are dropped can re-enroll the following day, but only after waitlists have been processed. Basically, students who are officially registered have priority to enroll in classes but all students can still enroll in classes.

For students who receive financial aid, and the majority of our students do, their aid will cover their minimum tuition payment, so we do not anticipate they will be at risk. These students also receive a corresponding exception status in CalCentral to ensure they can enroll in their classes.

The CNP policy is intended to support students in addressing their administrative responsibilities before the term begins so that they can focus on their academic responsibilities. It also finalizes course enrollments early in the semester.

Additionally, CNP ensures students have access to essential campus resources and other support services from the very first day of instruction.

Some students are confused about the short-term emergency loans. These loans are interest-free. Eligible undergraduate and graduate students can receive a co-payable loan the same day they apply; exceptional requests may take up to two business days. With these interest free loans, students can pay at least 20% of their tuition and fees.

During this pandemic, CNP is as important than ever. With some students considering taking the term off, they may neglect to drop their classes. The CNP policy will temporarily drop them from those classes, freeing up seats for students who are actually planning to enroll this term. Our goal is to ensure students have access to the classes they need.

https://registrar.berkeley.edu/registration/cancellation-withdrawal/cnp

Tuition and mandatory fees are set by the University of California Office of the President for all UC campuses. Tuition and mandatory fees have been set regardless of the method of instruction and will not be refunded in the event instruction occurs remotely for any part of the Academic Year. Mandatory university charges for tuition and student services continue to help cover ongoing operations such as the delivery of instruction and the cost of student services such as registration, financial aid, and remote academic advising. Our teaching continues, even as its method of delivery has changed. Students are connecting with and learning from world-class faculty, completing coursework, earning full course credit, and making progress toward an immensely valuable UC Berkeley degree. UC Berkeley student services continue to be available to students via remote options including virtual study jams, remote movie nights, “Coffee & Career” video chats, online fitness and art classes, and student-led programs and activities to ensure that the term remains a very powerful and enriching one for our students.

Some campus-based fees were established to support certain efforts like the Wellness Fee which is paying for many essential health services. Others were established to maintain the safety of buildings or other facilities when necessary for the health and safety of students - e.g., to address seismic deficiencies. Even as UC campuses such as ours have curtailed limited aspects of their operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the costs that campus-based fees are intended to cover continue.

As it currently stands, all student fees are being assessed regardless of the mode of instruction. This is a systemwide practice implemented by UCOP, and has been further clarified in an FAQ posted on the Student Affairs website. A breakdown of Berkeley’s “Campus Fee” can be found on the Office of the Registrar’s Tuition & Fees web page.

UC Berkeley is not able to offer in-state tuition for nonresidents. The difference in tuition for residents versus nonresidents is a reflection of the significant investment by California taxpayers in the University of California system.

Tuition and mandatory fees are set by the University of California Office of the President for all UC campuses. Tuition and mandatory fees have been set regardless of the method of instruction and will not be refunded in the event instruction occurs remotely for any part of the Academic Year. Mandatory university charges for tuition and student services continue to help cover ongoing operations such as the delivery of instruction and the cost of student services such as registration, financial aid, and remote academic advising. Our teaching continues, even as its method of delivery has changed. Students are connecting with and learning from world-class faculty, completing coursework, earning full course credit, and making progress toward an immensely valuable UC Berkeley degree. UC Berkeley student services continue to be available to students via remote options including virtual study jams, remote movie nights, “Coffee & Career” video chats, online fitness and art classes, and student-led programs and activities to ensure that the term remains a very powerful and enriching one for our students.

Some campus-based fees were established to support certain efforts like the Wellness Fee which is paying for many essential health services. Others were established to maintain the safety of buildings or other facilities when necessary for the health and safety of students - e.g., to address seismic deficiencies. Even as UC campuses such as ours have curtailed limited aspects of their operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the costs that campus-based fees are intended to cover continue.

UC Berkeley is not able to offer in-state tuition for nonresidents. The difference in tuition for residents versus nonresidents is a reflection of the significant investment by California taxpayers in the University of California system.

The transit fee is a student referendum voted on by the students. The reason for the increase in the fee is the students wanted additional service, a new bus line. They included the new bus line in the referendum and it passed when the students voted. It was not a campus decision, it was a student request.

As it currently stands, all student fees are being assessed regardless of the mode of instruction. This is a systemwide practice implemented by UCOP, and has been further clarified in an FAQ posted on the Student Affairs website.

We do not see the Class Pass Fee to be a usage fee that should not be assessed now, during remote instruction. Like many of our campus fees, this particular fee is funding an initiative that relies on stable multi-year revenue as per our agreement with AC Transit. We will continue to assess these fees as originally planned.

These are the various campus resources on student service fees:

• Fee Schedule
• Student Services Fee

The process for proposing a fee referenda can be found on the Student Fee Referenda Committee web page.

The transit fee is a student referendum voted on by the students. The reason for the increase in the fee is the students wanted additional service, a new bus line. They included the new bus line in the referendum and it passed when the students voted. It was not a campus decision, it was a student request.

As it currently stands, all student fees are being assessed regardless of the mode of instruction. This is a systemwide practice implemented by UCOP, and has been further clarified in an FAQ posted on the Student Affairs website.

We do not see the Class Pass Fee to be a usage fee that should not be assessed now, during remote instruction. Like many of our campus fees, this particular fee is funding an initiative that relies on stable multi-year revenue as per our agreement with AC Transit. We will continue to assess these fees as originally planned.

Graduate students form an important part of University Life. Whether in their programs or departments, or via Graduate Division town halls, or the scheduling of an appointment during office hours with Dean Lisa Garcia Bedolla, feedback and requests from graduate students help us to better serve the needs of our graduate students.

There are a number of work-study positions that may offer remote work accommodations. The Work-Study Program office is working diligently to recruit additional work-study employers and inform existing employers that they may consider engaging work-study students in remote work. Consistent with standard practice in other years, if students do not accept the work-study offered in their financial aid package before the start of the term, it will automatically be converted into loan so the funding is available in form they can access right away, if needed. Students may request that the offered loan be converted back to work-study later on in the academic year when they identify a work-study opportunity. To learn more about work-study and how to get the most out of the program, please review the Work-Study Information for Students and Work-Study Frequently Asked Questions pages.

Please allow us to correct an erroneous assumption in your question. Financial aid packages are based on the Estimated Total Cost of Attendance, which includes rent, food, transportation, personal expenses, and books and supplies in addition to tuition and fees. Off-campus rent amounts are based on actual rent costs that UC Berkeley students report in the periodic Undergraduate Cost of Attendance Survey conducted by the UC Office of the President. These costs are adjusted for inflation yearly. Should the standard allocation not match the actual living expenses students experience, they may request a Cost of Attendance Adjustment.

No. The student aid budget is separate from the campus operating budget.

We use the term “campus fee” to describe a set of fees that are only charged at the UC Berkeley campus. Campus fees are distinct from “system-wide fees” such as tuition and the Student Services Fee, which are charged at the same rate to all students in the UC system and are set by the UC Office of the President and the UC Regents.

Campus fee referenda are approved by a vote of the student body, and the fees cannot be used for purposes outside the original referenda language. Some were established to support certain efforts like the Wellness Fee which is paying for many essential health services. Others were established to maintain the safety of buildings or other facilities when necessary for the health and safety of students - e.g., to address seismic deficiencies. Even as UC campuses such as ours have curtailed limited aspects of their operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the costs that campus-based fees are intended to cover continue.

As it currently stands, all student fees are being assessed regardless of the mode of instruction. This is a systemwide practice implemented by UCOP, and has been further clarified in an FAQ posted on the Student Affairs website. A breakdown of Berkeley’s “Campus Fee” can be found on the Office of the Registrar’s Tuition & Fees web page.

Tuition and mandatory fees are set by the University of California Office of the President for all UC campuses. Tuition and mandatory fees have been set regardless of the method of instruction and will not be refunded in the event instruction occurs remotely for any part of the Academic Year. Mandatory university charges for tuition and student services continue to help cover ongoing operations such as the delivery of instruction and the cost of student services such as registration, financial aid, and remote academic advising. Our teaching continues, even as its method of delivery has changed. Students are connecting with and learning from world-class faculty, completing coursework, earning full course credit, and making progress toward an immensely valuable UC Berkeley degree. UC Berkeley student services continue to be available to students via remote options including virtual study jams, remote movie nights, “Coffee & Career” video chats, online fitness and art classes, and student-led programs and activities to ensure that the term remains a very powerful and enriching one for our students.

Some campus-based fees were established to support certain efforts like the Wellness Fee which is paying for many essential health services. Others were established to maintain the safety of buildings or other facilities when necessary for the health and safety of students - e.g., to address seismic deficiencies. Even as UC campuses such as ours have curtailed limited aspects of their operations in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many of the costs that campus-based fees are intended to cover continue.

UC Berkeley is not able to offer in-state tuition for nonresidents. The difference in tuition for residents versus nonresidents is a reflection of the significant investment by California taxpayers in the University of California system.

We have created a new central website called “Caring for Families” (family.berkeley.edu). This site is a clearinghouse for all dependent care information; it points users to resources available to them (according to whether they are students, staff, or faculty). It will also have Covid-related updates. The site will also feature a new web-based tool that is under development, to help members of the campus community find others with whom to trade or share care. This tool is called “Berkeley Care Bubbles.”

COVID-19 affects the campus budget in three major ways:

1. Lost revenue in auxiliary operations (e.g., Athletics, Housing & Dining, CalPerformances) due to remote operations
2. Increased costs required to deal with the virus (e.g., for remote instruction and operations, cleaning, virus testing)
3. Lost funding due to the economic downturn caused by the pandemic (e.g., reduced state funding)

If the campus is fully online in the spring, the lost auxiliary revenue, in particular, will see the greatest negative impact.

We can’t predict whether departments will hire fewer GSIs overall since those factors are influenced by enrollment and other factors. Students who are concerned they may not get an appointment in their own department can review this Expected Jobs Opportunities list.

Berkeley’s largest and most pressing expense is faculty and staff compensation, which grows almost every year due to the need to provide merit/cost of living increases and to ensure workforce competitiveness. Other major expenses include deferred maintenance and seismic corrections that are needed to improve the safety and quality of our campus building. As the oldest UC campus with the oldest infrastructure, these expenses are greater at Berkeley than at other UCs.

Unfortunately, this year’s budget cuts will be painful. The VCRO will consider a unit’s ability to cushion these cuts with available reserves and will also be expecting units to spend some of their “rainy day” funds to maintain their essential programs and personnel. We are aware that the museums, as well as the Botanical Garden and field stations are unique campus resources, and we are committed to keeping them viable through the current budget emergency.

Like most cities and counties, the City of Berkeley has found that, while it can offer testing to everyone, turnaround can be slow. The city estimates a turnaround of 6-8 days, which is too long to be very useful. UC Berkeley was able to mobilize quickly and start a testing lab during the early weeks of Shelter in Place, and has had enough capacity to assist the city in its testing, achieving a turnaround of a couple of days. For example, we test residents of some nursing homes and homeless shelters, as well as firefighters for the city. By testing our own staff and students, we relieve the city of the burden. Until cities have all the testing they need in a timely fashion, the Innovative Genomics Institute will continue to offer its services to the campus and community.

Data is still preliminary. We have 20 retirements as of June 30, 2020, which is 1.33% of the faculty (this is a bit lower than usual). All were full Professors. Average salary of full Professors is $186,000; so, with benefits, these retirements represent savings of approximately $5,150,000.

We are encouraging UCOP to move as quickly as possible to implement an equitable furlough program to minimize the need to lay employees off. However, for those campus services that are not currently being provided, some degree of layoffs may still be required if employees cannot be reassigned.

The effects on new faculty would be no different than on veteran faculty. We will honor startup packages. We ran a bridge grant program that will allocate around $600,000 in response to requests from Assistant Professors whose research was affected by the curtailment of campus activity in the spring.
https://apo.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/bridging_grant_program_for_...

The furlough program under consideration by UCOP would be tiered so that those with higher incomes would have to take higher numbers of furlough days (and, as a result, have a larger reduction in compensation).

This is not within UC Berkeley’s control, but rather the retirement system’s control. However, a reduction in time does not affect the salary calculation for retirement purposes. It does, however, affect service time accruals.

The campus cannot take this step on its own. UCOP must implement such a furlough program and it has indicated that it is developing a plan that might be ready for in depth discussion in the Fall.

Voluntary reductions in time and voluntary separations can and will be used as one way to give people who are in a position to reduce their income the opportunity to do so.

UCOP has not provided any updates on its negotiations with the collective bargaining units.

Yes, this type of reduction in time is also under consideration.

UC Berkeley is considering all options to address the budget shortfall, including reductions in time for employees.

A voluntary action can be revoked at any time. We do not know when UCOP will take further action on merit increases.

Temporary layoffs can be, generally speaking, up to 4 months with the length of time varying in accordance with the applicable collective bargaining agreement or policy. The length of a temporary layoff will be determined according to business need. Prior to the end of a temporary layoff, the business unit will evaluate next steps, including whether a temporary layoff will be made indefinite or possibly extended if the applicable collective bargaining agreement or policy permits it. Reassignments will be made depending on business needs.

UCOP, which handles all contractual interactions with organized labor, has been negotiating with the unions on this issue.

We are continuously working to set realistic expectations for managers and the campus as a whole, with the message being less people means less work. We rely on managers to work with their teams to understand and agree on what work can and cannot be done given our reduced capacity, which is not the same across all business units.