Hopefully Carnesale will jealously guard the taxpayers' interest. Representatives from the Department of Development were unavailable for comment. Each school at UCLA has a specific goal in mind for the campaign. While there are a number of reasons that the medical sciences department is raising so much money, its primary concern is the construction of a new medical center. The hospital, damaged in the 1994 Northridge quake, is in dire need of seismic renovation.
Private donations are a relatively small part of it, really.
However, administrators claim that public money comprises a far smaller percentage of the Medical Center's budget than other university departments. Twenty-two percent of UCLA's operating budget comes from state funds, but far less of the Medical Center's funds come from the state. The chancellor also stressed the fact that for the past 10 to 15 years, over half of the funds raised from the private sector went to the medical sciences department. Young went on to address the concern that the money raised in the campaign will not go to the right places because the funds only go where the donors designate them.