UMass Boston Chancellor Keith Motley on Tuesday offered his support for Barry Mills, the man who will replace him when he steps down from his post this summer. Motley, who announced his intention to resign last week, told University of Massachusetts trustees that he was leaving “with dignity” and without regrets after leading the campus for 10 years.

“I own every issue,” he told the board’s Committee of the Whole during a meeting held to discuss his campus’s finances. “I get too much credit for the successes and I’m proud to wear on my back whatever is on my back around this institution, because it’s an institution that gets into your soul.”

Motley’s resignation announcement came about five months after he sent a letter to students and faculty announcing plans to deal with a $26 million gap in the nearly $430 million budget for the Boston campus, including cuts, a hiring freeze and furloughs.

The Boston campus had reported an expected $15 million end-of-year deficit to the university system in late January, and UMass officials said on Tuesday that that number is now down to $6 million to $7 million after a series of budget fixes.

Lisa Calise, the university system’s senior vice president of administration and finance, updated members of the UMass board of trustees on efforts to close a roughly $26 million budget gap. She told the board’s administration and finance committee that UMass Boston had made $15.8 million in “expense adjustments,” including $11 million in discretionary savings and $1.2 million in deferred information technology investments, She noted that $1 million in financial aid had been saved due to lower enrollment numbers. She said the school had made $4.7 million in “revenue changes,” of which $4 million came from fee changes for College of Advancing and Professional Studies courses.

UMass president Martin Meehan said the campus’s original budget plan, approved by trustees, called for $25.7 million in cuts to achieve the projected $2.3 million surplus at the end of fiscal 2017. He said the campus “waited too long to implement” that plan.

“We’re moving forward,” he told reporters. “We believe that the failure here is more in execution of the plan that was presented to the Board of Trustees by the Boston campus. It’s more an issue of execution.”
Motley said his focus at the school has been on building its infrastructure and he described it as a “university on the move.” His interim replacement -- deputy chancellor and chief operating officer Barry Mills -- “will be known for reengineering this institution,” Motley said. “Barry and I will work together as we have been doing,” Motley said. “I have stayed out of his way to allow him to learn. I didn’t want to poison that. He knows that.”

Mills, the former president of Bowdoin College who joined the university last month, said the “core” of UMass Boston is strong, with “very impressive” students and faculty and a staff that works “tirelessly.” But he said the school must tackle a series of chronic, systemic problems and its budget process needs to “be fundamentally redone.”

He cited a variety of factors that have contributed to the school’s financial woes, including debt taken on for capital projects, “dramatically growing” depreciation of campus buildings, and enrollment numbers that did not meet “optimistic” projections.

“I’ve been on the job four weeks -- four weeks -- so I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t know all the problems,” said Mills. “And frankly, every day, there’s a new problem that has a lot of zeros, and it’s daunting.”

Meehan said that he and Motley jointly made the decision to bring Mills to UMass Boston. Motley plans to take a yearlong sabbatical and then to return to the campus to teach.

University officials said Mills is not a candidate to become the permanent chancellor of UMass Boston.