FY 2025 Budget

The FY25 budget, which covers the period of July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025, represents the culmination of our planning and budgeting cycle, shaped by the challenges faced throughout the past year, including Workday financial transformation and UW-IT’s own extensive reorganization.

As part of our reorganization, we sought to better align our financial structure with our organizational structure. Our goal is to foster more detailed financial reporting and analysis for informed decision-making across UW and UW-IT.

The FY25 budget of $161 million is by far the largest in UW-IT’s history, underscoring the importance of information technology in the daily life of the University. The budget has grown as well because UW has entrusted UW-IT with new responsibilities and greater oversight of critical administrative and security tasks, including $6 million from the Office of the Provost in additional funds to strengthen defenses against cybersecurity threats. Maintaining and growing trust is part of our ethos.

While our budget resources have grown, so have expenses. Currently, we have a structural operating deficit, and we are committed to reconciling it over the next few years — maintaining focus and alignment across all divisions to achieve a fiscally sustainable budget while adhering to the University’s guidance of a 10 percent ending fund balance.

Other FY25 highlights: UW-IT submitted two incremental funding requests through the Provost Reinvestment Funds. One request continues the tradition of securing a loan to pay for the Unisys mainframe, and the other seeks funding to plan and execute the move of the virtualized Unisys mainframe hosting the student database to Microsoft’s Azure (cloud) platform.

Percentage of Labor Expenses by Division

Charting a new course with new divisions

UW-IT’s extensive reorganization sought to better align its work with the needs of UW. As part of that work, two former divisions became one: Data & Applications (D&A), with about 200 employees and a labor-only budget of about $46 million.

The Infrastructure Division also experienced major changes, with new leadership poised to ensure UW-IT is aligned with UW’s emerging information technology needs. The new division of People & Culture seeks to increase opportunities for its staff and new employees, underscoring UW-IT’s commitment to collectively support UW’s mission.

Percentage of Non-Labor Expenses by Division

UW-IT’s budget represents UW priorities

A budget often tells a story, and with this budget, we want to tell a story of openness in how money is spent. We believe in strategic and transparent decision-making, in partnership and with input from the entire University. Below, you’ll see a detailed report that show where funds are being directed. These are current expense priorities for FY25, and these numbers will change in coming years as we adjust to meet UW’s emerging technology needs.

These expenses show where UW priorities lie: Data security and protection against threats to personal privacy has become a major area of concern for UW. These concerns are reflected under the Office of Information Security budget, with nearly $11 million dedicated to enterprise risk management. The Office of the Provost has committed to $6 million yearly for Cybersecurity. The rest of the $11 million is a carryover from FY24.

Computing and storage also play a pivotal role in the daily lives of students, faculty and staff, with a budget of $11.5 million, and another $9.2 million to operate and maintain our data networks.

For some, it may be a surprise to discover that we spend about $9.5 million in software licenses, and another $1.3 million for instructional apps. Software is expensive but as collaborative tools go, they have become essential for UW to accomplish its work — and much more cost-effective than trying to invent our own.