text: In February 2019, university campus employees protested an administration decision to increase the daily parking fee from $6 to $15 to cover the costs of the garage operation and other expenses. During the 2018–2019 academic year, UMass Boston was ranked by multiple publications as being among the best universities in the United States for veteran students. In May 2019, the Pioneer Institute released a white paper co-authored by former Massachusetts State Representative Gregory W. Sullivan that concluded that Chancellor Keith Motley and other UMass Boston administrators were scapegoated for the 2017 fiscal year $30 million budget deficit and that instead the approval by the System Board of Trustees of an accelerated 5-year capital spending plan in December 2014 and an error to a 5-year campus reserve ratio estimate were the cause of the $26 million in budget reductions implemented by interim Chancellor Barry Mills and that the reductions were made at the direction of the UMass Central Office.
  Additionally, the white paper states that the 2017 audit was not conducted in accordance with Generally Accepted Government Auditing Standards or reported in accordance with auditing standards, and that the purchase of Mount Ida College in April 2018 was conducted by a wire transfer from the UMass System for $75 million without being included on the previously approved university capital plan at the time the UMass Central Office ordered the budget reductions rather than UMass Amherst purchasing the Mount Ida campus with loanable funds to be repaid with interest. The following month, interim Chancellor Katherine Newman issued a press statement disputing the findings of the white paper. In September 2019, the UMass Boston Faculty Staff Union President addressed the UMass System Board of Trustees to protest the potential offering of equivalent programs at the Mount Ida campus that are already offered at the Boston campus. The following December, the UMass Boston Faculty Staff Union President presented the board with a petition from the Boston campus faculty reiterating their concerns about the Mount Ida campus and requesting more input into its planning.