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Fee Transparency Project
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November 17th, 2025

3:30 – 5:00 pm

AgendaMinutes
  1. Welcome and Introductions
    1. Members' introductions: Name, Pronouns, Year, Major, and Space.
    2. Order: Cowell, Stevenson, Crown, Merrill, Kresge, Porter, Oakes, RCC, C9, JRL, Graduate Students, SAB, Provost, SUA, Lisa, Sezona, Lucy
      1. Present: Marshall, Mel, Sezona, Aims, Amber(Guest), Angelina(Guest), Arielle, Cheryl, Cindy, Laila, Maya, Nicholas, Sofia, Vir, Wahaj, Trey
  2. Approval of the Agenda and Minutes
    1. Approval of Agenda
    2. Approval of November 10th Minutes and Closed Session Minutes
      1. Tabled to the next meeting.
  3. [3:30 - 4:00] University Budget Presentation by AVC Amber Blakeslee
    1. Presentation
      1. Budget Terminology: Permanent Budget, One-time budget (reserve, carryforward), Core funds, Non-core Funds.
      2. The growth in expenditures outpacing revenue drives budget deficits. Solid progress towards closing the recurring budget gap.
      3. Saving methods have helped close the recurring gap from $150 million yearly to $79 million.
      4. Each department was assigned cost-saving targets and is responsible for developing financial plans to meet these targets.
      5. Revision to the carryforward: carryforward is returned to the division instead of the individual unit.
    2. Q&A
      1. Marshall asks what constitutes a “lower priority item” that may be facing cuts or full removal. Amber clarified that we cannot sustain all current activities and that some programs will need to be cut so that the remaining ones can continue at full capacity.
      2. Wahaj asks about how the university plans to keep up student support for a growing student population when support programs are facing cuts. Answer: The focus will be on maintaining student support.
  4. [4:00 - 4:30] DSAS Budget Presentation by AVC Angela Cline
    1. Presentation
      1. The revenue augmentation committee has been working on ways to increase revenue without pushing more costs onto the students, through corporate partnerships, sponsorships, etc.
      2. The core reduction target was met by the reallocation of staff paid through the student service fee to auxiliary and reduction of vacant positions.
      3. To date, DSAS has completed $6.1 million in reductions, of which $3.4 million was from the SSF.
    2. Q&A
      1. Which departments were affected the most by these cuts? Answer: Major cuts had to be made all across the board; however, Student Success and Equity and Housing have taken a sizable reduction to their budget.
  5. [4:30 - 5:00] SSF/M7 Annual Report + Overview of Measure 7 by Lisa Bishop
    1. Presentation
      1. Permanent budget is a recurring permanent fund. The operating budget is made up of operating budget, carryforward, one-time adjustments, and outside sources of revenue.
      2. Revision to the carryforward: Carryforward is returned to the division instead of the individual Unit.
    2. Q&A
      1. How do you address the increasing difficulty as you get closer to the reduction target? Merging departments has allowed for greater cost sharing, as well as continuing to increase revenue instead of only reducing costs. As well as honing in on deep discrepancies and redundancies.
      2. What is SFAC's role in reducing these costs and closing this budget gap? DSAS will continue to cooperate and communicate with SFAC to increase their involvement, especially in communicating directly with departments to identify and remove inefficiencies.
      3. Is the department or campus as a whole looking into the use of AI to make up staffing shortfalls or reduce staffing costs? While the university is looking into uses of AI within operations, the use of AI when it comes to staffing is not a primary goal or target.
  6. Announcements & Updates
    1. SFAC Workshop
      1. Last workshop is 11/21 from 10am - 11am
      2. Workshop attendance tracker
  7. SFAC Chair/Vice Chair Updates
    1. Chair:
      1. Attended CSF
        1. Report TODO
    2. Vice-Chair
      1. Attended CSF
        1. CSF Agenda
      2. Vir’s Beautiful Notes
        1. CSF Notes Day 1
        2. CSF Notes Day 2
  8. Subcommittee reports
    1. Audit:
      1. Time/Dates: Every Wednesdays 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
      2. Location: Zoom/In-person
      3. Minutes - TODO
    2. Outreach:
      1. Time/Dates: Every Other Thursday 12pm - 1pm
      2. Location: Zoom (Only in person when planning tabling)
      3. Minutes - We didn’t have a meeting this past Thursday due to the Funding Call Workshop being at the same time but…
        1. We posted a Funding Call flier promoting the last workshop
        2. We will be posting Member Bios on Mondays each week until we do everyone!
        3. We will be posting Fee of the week every Friday!
      4. Working on CSF recap Post, Need opinions on what takeaways to include
        1. CSF Post
      5. We are also tabling this Thursday 11/20 from 12-2pm in the Quarry
      6. Everyone Please follow us on instagram @ucscsfac
  9. [5:00] Adjournment

Upcoming Guests/Topics:.

  1. Student Media Council Summer Fee/Student Voice and Empowerment Fee Review
  2. December 1st, 4:00 - 4:40 pm: Presentation on Bay Tree Renovation with Steve Houser, DSAS Director of Capital Planning
  3. Potentially SFAC Attending a UC Regents Meeting: March 17th, 2026 @UCSF
  4. Planning Spring CSF Meeting

Meeting and Committee Member Resources:

  1. SFAC Roster
  2. Orientation Materials
  3. Agendas and Minutes
  4. Tracking Sheet for Campus Based Fees ongoing discussion
  5. Google Folder
  6. Summer 26 Fee Levels