This post was updated May 22 at 9:48 p.m.
UCLA has spent at least $213 million on the Ascend Finance Transformation project, and yet, seven years after the project’s launch, it has few concrete accomplishments.
“I can’t say that I’ve actually seen a live screen for Ascend,” said Reem Hanna-Harwell, a former member of the project’s steering committee.
The initial reported budget for the project was $120 million, but, according to a presentation given during the May 2024 Ascend 2.0 quarterly town hall, the estimated total cost was projected to be roughly $286 million.
The university declined to answer exactly how much money has been spent on the project since its official start date in April 2018.
The Ascend project involves a transformation of UCLA’s financial system – moving from the current mainframe system to Oracle Cloud, modernizing the chart of accounts and upgrading all business applications which contribute data to the central finance, research and budget systems, according to the 2021 project charter. Read more...