Endowment and Investment Accounting

The goal for the management of endowment funds at an academic institution is to ensure that the endowment provides future students and faculty with the same level of spending resources, adjusted for inflation, as current students and faculty while also providing a stable and increasing cash flow to fund current operating budgets. In order to accomplish this, endowment funds of the University of Utah (the “University”) are invested under the total return concept of the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMIFA), whereby “net appreciation, realized and unrealized, in the fair value of the assets of an endowment fund” may be appropriated for expenditure. UPMIFA was adopted into state law under Utah Code 51-08 and it is the governing regulation for the University’s endowment funds. University Regulations Library Policy 3-050: University of Utah Investment Policies