General fund budgetary determinants in 27 academic departments at the University of California Santa Barbara were studied for the period from 1977/78 through 1983/84. The focus was resource allocation and utilization within departments of the College of Letters and Science. The research design included a pooled multivariate regression analysis of 17 variables plus a series of interviews with 30 randomly selected department chairpersons and department staff. The combined quantitative and qualitative results confirmed the importance of disciplinary differences in budgeting, reaffirmed previous research findings about the importance of departmental power and prestige in budget allocations, and revealed that student enrollments may not be a major factor influencing department level budget allocations during times of relative stability. The qualitative results also identified the importance of an economic dimension, an interpersonal dimension, and a reputational dimension for departments in the budget allocation process, while confirming that the external or macro model by which public universities acquire resources is not necessarily applicable to the internal or micro model by which resources are allocated to departments. (Author/SW)