UCPD operates an almost $22 million budget with financial results indicating a 48 percent increase in total expenses, matching a 44 percent increase in total funding, from fiscal year 2012 to fiscal year 2016.

A report obtained through a Public Records Act request by The Daily Californian shows, on average, a general upward trend, though the average doesn’t capture the whole picture of growing funds and expenses. Cascading through the document is a more than $7 million dollar increase in total expenses in the past five years.

UCPD funds are largely used to pay the 221 employees in the department in a consistent manner. On average, about 88 percent of the funds are used for compensation and benefits, coming out to an average total of about $17 million per year. From 2012 to 2016, benefits rose about 107 percent, from $2.8 million to $5.8 million.

Total expenses and total funds have risen over time, but they have done so with slow climbs and swift jumps. UCPD averaged about a $178,000 net deficit over the past five years. The average, however, is skewed by several deficits. In 2013, UCPD recorded a deficit of about $294,000, followed by a deficit in 2014 of $462,000 and $353,000 in 2016. The 2014 and 2013 deficits occurred in the years directly after an approximate 25 percent increase in funding and expenses from 2012.

Starting in fiscal year 2013, a new composite benefit rate for employees — which is meant to decrease the administrative burden managing awards and decrease the risk of under-recovering funds — was instituted at UC Berkeley, resulting in the large expense increase that year, according to UCPD Budget Manager Kevin Bentz. In the same year, UCPD also entered a security agreement with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, providing security services via employed security patrol officers.

Certain spending and funding categories fluctuate wildly, while others stay stagnant. Campus funds, defined as funds generated internally in the university to cover operations, increased about $700,000 between 2012 and 2016, from about $11.5 million to $12.2 million. But total expenses have risen roughly $7 million — from about $15 million to $22.2 million — in the same period.

This discrepancy is possible because the two other sources of funding have increased substantially: UCPD revenue income, defined by UCPD as “funds received from non-university-affiliated organizations,” and recharge, “funds received from university-affiliated departments.”

In fiscal year 2012, revenue from non-university-affiliated organizations was about $442,000. It rose about 510 percent to approximately $2.7 million in 2016. Likewise, the recharge income from university-affiliated departments rose about 116 percent over the same period, from about $3.2 million to $6.9 million.

Most of UCPD’s revenue income comes from Berkeley Lab, which in turn is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, according to Bentz. The majority of recharge and revenue income comes through security services, such as security presence for more than 400 events each year including football games, concerts and campus events in general. In addition, UCPD charges for other procedures, such as key card access, alarms, fingerprinting and background checks in hiring.

Other operating expenses, excluding compensation payments, also jumped from $1.9 million in fiscal year 2012 to $2.4 million the next year. These expenses later fell to about $2 million in fiscal year 2015 and rose again to about $2.8 million in 2016.