SFU’s Finances: An Update
December 5, 2025
It’s budget time again at SFU — that time of year when many of you may be receiving your reference points and preparing budgets for the next fiscal year. I wish, of course, that budgetary times were much easier for all of you — I can’t imagine how difficult it must be.
Today, I wanted to let you know about some issues that have come up in our continuing look at SFU's budget and finances.
SFU’s Voluntary Retirement Program (VRP)
On December 4, an SFU representative let me know that the VRP program had closed and that the University would be making an announcement prior to the holiday closure about the number of affected positions.
I did also ask the University for a list of the soon-to-be vacated positions and the departments/units in which the positions are located. My fear — as it is perhaps yours — is that the distribution of those leaving isn’t evenly spread across the University. In other words, some units may bear a higher proportion of the APSA members who are leaving and, thus, the negative consequences of their departure. It’s also very unclear how many of these positions will be filled in the coming weeks and months: after all, the VRP is presumably designed to save SFU money, and part of those savings will also (presumably) be due to some vacated positions going unfilled.
What is also troubling is just what the financial and other consequences will be of so much institutional knowledge and expertise leaving the University early in 2026. Please stay tuned for further updates.
Hiring More Faculty
SFU’s academic plan noted that there will be up to a 2-5% increase in hiring of continuing faculty over the next five years. The apparent purpose of doing so, even in hard budgetary times, is to further buttress SFU’s teaching and research mission, especially as SFU remains a research-intensive institution.
SFU representatives further confirmed that the estimated cost of increasing the continuing faculty complement over the next five years is between $4M and $10M by 2030/31, as compared to 2025/26.
While it’s generally a good thing that SFU is hiring more faculty, I’m certainly troubled by the timing. Approximately 90 of our members have been position-eliminated in the last two years, with another unknown amount leaving as a result of the VRP. In this vein, doesn’t hiring more faculty require hiring staff to support the research and teaching undertaken by academics? In other words, SFU doesn’t work without you.
SFU’s Auditor
You may have heard that the Office of the Auditor General of B.C. (OAG) has now replaced BDO Canada LLP as SFU’s auditor and will be doing so, I understand, until 2028. The highest level of OAG involvement is occurring at only two post-secondary institutions – Okanagan College and SFU.
Now, I did ask the SFU senior administration about this development, and they kindly responded, noting that the OAG, which serves as the auditor for the public sector in B.C., does select a few organizations to audit directly. Furthermore, the OAG typically rotates off public sector organizations every five years. The OAG, for example, served as the auditor for UBC from 2019/2020 to 2023/2024.
To an extent, what SFU has noted is true: the OAG rotates the universities it audits and, yes, it did just end its role as auditor at UBC. My outstanding questions, however, are 1) do SFU’s financial problems figure into the OAG’s decision to focus on SFU?; and 2) what else may have motivated the OAG to step in and oversee the University?
These are critical questions I hope to learn more about in the coming weeks.
Transparency
In its communications to the SFU community and beyond, SFU has stressed management transparency. This principle, however, isn’t always apparent. For example, SFU’s budget and financial reports are now being shared orally at BOG open meetings. It appears that detailed quarterly financial reports are prepared for the SFU board and committees and that this financial information is available only for a select few.
SFU also replied to my questions about this development and supplied links to two documents, noting that Board reports are routinely posted online and shared in the newsletter to faculty and staff. In other words, the level of transparency around SFU’s finances is just fine, thank you.
Maybe the best option for you here is to judge for yourself. Here’s what SFU provides now by way of financial updates:
Item 5.1 Q2 2025 Financial Update
And here’s what SFU used to provide:
If SFU strove to be more financially transparent, it could also (for example) post the quarterly reports the University makes to the Ministry, which include, among other helpful items, “actuals to date”. In short, information that helps us better understand the state of SFU’s financial health.