Faculty Economics & Business (FEB) deficit to increase to €4.8 million in coming years
In the UvA draft budget 2024, four of the seven UvA faculties are in the red, in part because of hefty salary increases and other charges such as energy which are not fully covered by sufficient income. In the outlook for the coming years, the UvA is aiming for “a zero result from 2026.” From that year on, in other words, the UvA should break even.
The year 2024 is going to be a tough one financially for the faculties, according to the UvA’s draft budget for next year. The seven faculties have budgeted a total negative result of €9.5 million. They can partly cover this deficit with the use of €6.5 million in reserves, but that still leaves a deficit of €3 million. Also in 2025, some faculties (not all) may use reserves to cover deficits. The intention is that all budget units (both faculties and other units) will break even as of 2026, i.e.: no profit, no loss, a so-called zero result.
FEB pushes deficits forward
In the preparatory calculations for the budget, the so-called Framework Letter, the Faculty of Economics & Business (FEB) still arrived at a substantial deficit of €4 million. Over the past few months, costs and revenues have been adjusted left and right, resulting in a deficit of €1.4 million for 2024. But the decline in the deficit compared to the Framework Letter is actually because the difference has been pushed forward to the years 2025 through 2027. In the latter year, FEB is looking at a deficit of €4.8 million, an amount at odds with the UvA’s “zero aspiration” Substantial cuts for the coming years therefore seem inevitable for the bursars, all the more so since the (considerable) reserves may not be used.
Science Faculty
The Faculty of Humanities is also facing a deficit: €1.7 million. But unlike the economists, that deficit will decrease drastically in the coming years to €60,000 in 2027. The humanists will also face a cutback. Something similar applies to the Faculty of Law, except the deficit for 2024 is even smaller, at €800,000, a deficit that will be eliminated the following year.
The largest deficit for 2024 is for Sciences Faculty (SF): almost €8 million, which can only be solved to a small extent with the use of reserves. The SF is also in the red in the multi-year budget through 2027. This undoubtedly has to do with the costly construction at Science Park of LabQ, a building dedicated to quantum technology research. The debt at the SF will decrease significantly in the coming years to €400,000 in 2027. The SF does not have to make cuts and can use reserves. The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences is breaking even, as are medicine and dentistry.
Facility Services
Budgeted results are not rosy in other units either, especially in Facility Services, which foresees a budgeted deficit of nearly €700,000 in 2024, rising to €6 million in 2027. Therefore, significant cuts will have to be made there as well if the department wants to break even in 2027. Student Services must also take measures in the coming years to break even in 2026, as must the University Library, Student Health Care, and Energy Administration.
3,000 square meters of additional construction on REC
Then there is the annual haggling around the updating of the UvA Housing Plan, a headache since time immemorial, although in the coming years, a good number of renovated buildings will become available for use, such as REC-P, REC-J/K, and the brand new University Library on the Binnengasthuisterrein, now called University Quarter. But then again, how many square meters of workspace are still needed now that political pressure has grown to curb the influx of international students and because more and more people regularly work from home? The UvA believes that hybrid working “has become a structural factor in the use of offices”.
At the same time, teaching space remains necessary for the 40,000 UvA students. The UvA says it has “no more growth ambition,” but even without that ambition, the UvA remains popular. This will lead to “additional new construction volume” on the Roeterseilandcampus (REC) being included in the housing plan. “By 2029, an expansion of approximately 3,000 square meters is included in the housing plan for the benefit of the general primary process.”
What the options are for that is not yet clear, but the UvA is floating the idea of “more rentable square footage in J/K.” So perhaps the three-story J/K building will go up in height after all, an idea that has been discussed in the past. What is also going up is the square meter price that faculties and units must pay the UvA to use the buildings. That price will go up four percent annually starting in 2025.
Participation
The draft budget is currently up for discussion with the academic community. The aforementioned Framework Letter, which forms the basis for this budget, is incidentally not yet the subject of agreement between the participation council and the Executive Board. The joint meeting of the Central Works Council and the Central Student Council has the legal right to consent to the main points of the Framework Letter.
The joint meeting did not give that approval in July until the co-determination participation in the development of the REC, which houses three faculties and all kinds of services, has been “adequately and mutually settled.” That must be resolved before the joint meeting can approve the draft budget. Meanwhile, the budget calendar rumbles on because in principle the UvA budget must be approved by the Supervisory Board by January 1st.
