The University of Arizona only increased its days' worth of cash on hand by one day over the last year, and still falls 65 days short of the minimum requirement.
However, UA Chief Financial Officer John Arnold told the Arizona Board of Regents Thursday the university hopes for the number to be a little higher by the June 30 end of this fiscal year.
He also said UA estimates it will increase its days' worth of cash on hand by six days in the next fiscal year, to bring the total up from the current 78 to 84 by the end of fiscal year 2027.
This number will still be 59 days below the Arizona Board of Regents’ minimum requirement for days cash on hand for the three public universities it oversees: UA, Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University.
The board’s minimum requirement is 143 days cash on hand, and its target range is 143 to 239 days. Days cash on hand is a day’s worth of readily available cash, which is generally defined as the amount needed to cover operating expenses for a day.
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Old Main at the University of Arizona.
UA’s days of cash on hand took a beating in fiscal year 2024 in the aftermath of the “financial crisis” announced by former UA President Robert C. Robbins in fall 2023. As of the start of FY26, the UA eliminated its $177 million budget deficit from that crisis.
Between FY23 and FY24, UA’s reported number dropped from 110 to 86, going even lower in FY25 to 77.
At an ABOR meeting in fall 2024, a few months after Arnold took the CFO role, he said the UA would take a “decade plus” to restore its cash reserves.
“There are ways of increasing cash on hand (but) we don’t want to put perverse things in place, and so, this is going to be a longer-term strategy,” UA President Suresh Garimella had said at the 2024 board meeting.
“Because we’re fixing a lot of things at the same time that the cash on hand has gone so low, that it doesn’t make us comfortable at all. … But we don’t want to somehow hit that number in unhealthy ways, and so, we’re thinking very carefully about it,” Garimella had said.
ASU’s number of days cash on hand for FY26 is 161 days and NAU’s is 168 days. By the end of fiscal ‘27, ASU expects to have 190 days' worth, and NAU projects 175.
Reporter Prerana Sannappanavar covers higher education for the Arizona Daily Star and Tucson.com. Contact her at psannappa1@tucson.com or DM her on Twitter.
Prerana Sannappanavar
Higher Education Reporter
