Introduction

from the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

I am pleased to present the University of Florida’s Annual Financial Report for the fiscal year ending on June 30, 2018. This report provides timely, useful information about the University’s financial activities, status and well-being in the past fiscal year.

The mission of the Office of the Vice President and Chief Financial Officer is to “provide leadership in financial planning, decision making and process improvement.” We are continually seeking ways to provide financial support and guidance to the campus community and collaborate with partners across UF.

Here are some highlights from the year:

  • The University has reached its highest ranking ever as the No. 8 public university as reported in US News and World Report. Ranking factors include: undergraduate academic reputation, graduation and retention rates, faculty resources, student selectivity, financial resources, alumni giving, and graduation rate performance. It is a great honor to be one of the country’s best public universities.
  • The University is committed to bringing the world’s best talent to UF through the Faculty 500 initiative. This initiative is going to bring in an additional 500 faculty members to increase our excellence in research and reduce student faculty ratio and class sizes. The first wave of faculty joined the UF community in the fall 2018 semester.
  • Research funding has consistently increased over the past few years and fiscal year 2018 surpassed the previous record of fiscal year 2016 by $113.6 million. The largest recipients were the College of Medicine ($349 million), the Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences ($166 million), the College of Engineering ($85 million), and the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences ($40 million).
  • UF is at the halfway mark of its $3 billion capital campaign. At this point, over $1.5 billion has been raised through the generosity of donors to the University. These funds and the earnings generated from UF’s endowment help provide the resources for the margin of excellence we seek and help foster recognition of the University’s world-class achievements in learning, discovery, engagement, and economic development.
  • The University has implemented a new Campuswide Modernization Program to Advance Student Services known as the COMPASS project. This program will unify student services to benefit students, faculty, and staff who use and need to access student-related information, while providing innovations and abilities with constituent relationship management, student data governance, master data management, reporting, and analytics.
  • The University is implementing a Spend Analytics tool. The tool will allow clear visibility into campuswide spending data, showing all spending by supplier regardless of payment method, and will categorize UF’s spending. Clarity of spend data will enable UF to obtain better value for campus by leveraging campus-wide spending at the category and item level.

In addition to the highlights and business process improvements noted above, the fiscal year 2018 included the completion of major construction projects such as the Innovation Hub, Phase II, the Basic Science Building Ground Floor Renovation, the UF Surplus Property Warehouse, and the IFAS Honey Bee Lab. Further discussion about the construction projects is described in the Management’s Discussion and Analysis.

Construction continues on several major projects including the Institute of Black Culture and the Institute of Hispanic-Latino Cultures, the Wertheim Laboratory for Engineering Excellence, the new UF Gator Baseball Stadium, and the Katie Seashole Pressly Softball Stadium Renovation and Expansion. I encourage you to read the following report to learn more about the financial health and activities of the University of Florida – the state of Florida’s oldest, largest and most comprehensive flagship university – a place dear to us all and where preeminence thrives.

Most cordially, Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Signature Michael V. McKee
Vice President and Chief Financial Officer