Ex-CFO Rulney still works at U of A for $500K salary amid financial crisis

Former University of Arizona Vice President of Business Affairs and Chief Financial Officer Lisa Rulney is still employed by the university and has retained her $500,000 salary, according to documents obtained by the Arizona Daily Star.

Rulney now serves as senior advisor to business operations, according to her LinkedIn bio, and internal payroll documents obtained by the Star show she has kept her salary of $506,325.

Rulney started the position on Dec. 13, when UA President Robert C. Robbins told the Arizona Board of Regents that she had left the CFO role amid the university’s financial crisis.

Robbins told the board during that meeting that he had “accepted the resignation” of Rulney, and did not say that she had taken a new role within the university and retained her salary.

ABOR Executive Director John Arnold has stepped into Rulney’s former role in an interim manner.

The UA confirmed to the Star that at the time of her resignation, Robbins asked Rulney to stay on at the university during the transition to support implementation of the financial mitigation plan, as well as to assist with operations within the Division of Business Affairs. A spokesperson for the university said the role is temporary, and that she reports directly to Arnold.

“We appreciate Lisa Rulney’s willingness to utilize her longtime experience and expertise to continue serving the university at this critical time,” the university wrote in a statement.

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Many faculty senators blamed Rulney for the $240 million miscalculation in cash reserves that Robbins disclosed at a regents meeting in November. Rulney, CFO since April 2019, oversaw the team responsible for financial projections and management.

The university also is dealing with “an ongoing budget deficit,” Robbins said in December, and has enacted hiring and pay freezes among other budget cuts.

At a Faculty Senate meeting last month about the financial situation, Ted Downing, a longtime research professor at the university, asked Rulney directly why she had not tendered her resignation at that point.

“I have worked for this institution for 22 and a half years, and I absolutely love this place,” Rulney responded at the Dec. 5 meeting. “I want to help work through this challenge. We have been through bigger changes before — we’ve been through a global pandemic — and we got through it because we all worked together.”

She took “responsibility for overestimating our days cash on hand ratio,” but said she would “continue to work on this challenge until the president asks me not to, because I believe in this place, and I am excited about our future.”