Patrick J. Murphy

Patrick Murphy is the Faculty Director for the Urban and Public Affairs program. Patrick is particularly interested in public budgets and tax policy, with an eye toward fairness and sustainability. As a policy researcher, he has led a number of different applied projects for organizations such as the RAND Corporation, the University of Washington, and the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC). He currently serves as the Director of Resource Equity and Public Finance for The Opportunity Institute, based in Berkeley, California.

Patrick taught in USF’s Department of Politics for nearly 20 years, during portions of that time, he served as Department Chair as well as Director of the McCarthy Center for Public Service. He also has worked in and with governments, including a position at the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and as a consultant for state and local fiscal issues. Recently, Patrick did a stint in impact philanthropy, leading Arnold Ventures' efforts to encourage governments to make efficient and fair public finance decisions.

• Budget and tax policy
• Education finance
• California policy

• Faculty Director, Masters of Urban and Public Affairs
• Faculty Director, Masters of Public Administration

• PhD and MA, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• MPA, University of Texas-Austin
• BA, University of Notre Dame

• Director of Resource Equity and Public Finance at The Opportunity Institute

• Adjunct Fellow, Public Policy Institute of California

• How to mend, not end, Connecticut’s Fiscal Guardrails (N. Mclaughlin, L. Jia, and Z. Liscow). Tobin Center for Economic Policy, Yale University. 2024.

• California’s Fiscal Future: Facts, Origins, and Trends (C. Hahnel, A. Jiao, and M. Echaveste). A report for the California 100 Commission, Berkeley: The Opportunity Institute, June 2022.

• California’s Budget in the COVID-19 Era:  A Story in Three Acts.  Municipal Finance Journal 41, 2 and 3, Summer and Fall: 1-11; 2020.

• Preparing for the Next Recession in California (J. Paluch and R. Mehlotra), San Francisco:  Public Policy Institute of California, 2019.