The former finance chief of the University of California, Los Angeles, who was once at odds with his former employer over deficit projections, has landed a new job in the public sector.
Stephen Agostini, who was fired as CFO of UCLA in February after publicly speaking about his calculations of a $425 million deficit at the university, has been named finance chief of Culver City, California. UCLA officials have since disputed Agostini’s projections, calling them “inaccurate.”
In a news release issued Monday, City Manager Odis Jones said that Agostini “brings a level of financial discipline and clarity that is essential as we address our long-term fiscal challenges.”
Despite Agostini’s own projections of a multimillion-dollar deficit at UCLA, Culver City’s news release said that Agostini “closed a $300 million gap and delivered a balanced budget with a surplus” at the university.
Jones and Culver City’s finance department didn’t respond Thursday to emailed questions about Agostini’s appointment.
Meanwhile, in a March 26 message to campus obtained by CFO.com, interim vice chancellor and CFO Reem Hanna-Harwell said that the university’s current deficit is only about half of what Agostini projected.
“Based on approved spending plans and current planning assumptions, UCLA’s closing deficit on central accounts for FY26 is projected at approximately $220 million,” she said.
Though she didn’t mention Agostini by name in the letter, Hanna-Harwell acknowledged that students “may have seen previous references in the media to a higher deficit figure.”
Agostini had first shared his own $425 million budget deficit calculation in an interview with UCLA student newspaper The Daily Bruin. At the time, Agostini told the paper he had worked for the federal government for a long time but that he had “rarely seen the kind of financial management flaws and failures that I see here when I got here.”
Before he started working as UCLA’s finance chief in May 2024, Agostini held the same role at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Office of Personnel Management and the Economics and Statistics Administration.
In her letter, Hanna-Harwell said that Agostini’s projection included “uncommitted funds: spending requests that had not yet been approved and did not therefore reflect UCLA’s projected closing deficit on central accounts.”
“Importantly, we are also working with academic and administrative units across the campus to understand shortfalls that require attention beyond our central account. This process is ongoing and requires parsing out of recurring deficits from one-time shortfalls and also requires us to look beyond 2025–26 to incorporate plans for deficit reductions that may already be underway.”
She pointed to the creation to the “Executive Budget Action Group” in November, which is aimed at giving “institutional leadership and coordination around the financial principles and budgetary decisions that will shape UCLA’s path forward,” according to Hanna-Harwell.
She went on to note that, UCLA, like several other public universities, faces “financial pressures driven by curtailed state funding levels, rising operating costs that outpace revenue, and an unprecedented attack on higher education.”
“These challenges are serious and require difficult decisions, but they also provide an opportunity to sharpen our priorities and invest more strategically in our future.”
It is uncommon, though not unheard of, for public universities to lose money. In an analysis of 525 public institutions throughout the United States from fiscal years 2014 through 2023, University of Tennessee, Knoxville professor Robert Kelchen revealed that 16% had “lost money in at least five of the last ten years,” he wrote in a January blog post.
“In general, most flagship public universities did exceedingly well and many never lost money,” Kelchen wrote. “But 22 institutions lost money in eight out of ten years, with 15 of them being located in New York. It is indeed a tough time for many regional public universities, even though they are at very low risk of closure.”
