The University closed the 2011 fiscal year with a $130 million deficit on $3.9 billion in expenses, a significant jump from the last year’s annual deficit of $900,000, according to Harvard’s annual financial report.

Having joined Harvard only a few months ago, Provost Alan M. Garber ’76 called reforming the Harvard University Library system his “number one” priority at Tuesday’s meeting of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

The new deficit figure was revealed at a meeting late last week with Leslie A. Kirwan, dean of Administration and Finance for FAS. Dean of FAS Michael D. Smith is expected to announce the number at the Oct. 4 Faculty meeting, according to FAS spokesperson Jeff Neal.

Many faculty members say they hope next year’s budget will address the needs of growing departments, several of which say they have been short-staffed in recent years.

While a recently-released report from the American Association of University Professors indicated that across the board faculty salaries still reflect a depressed fiscal environment, professors in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences will continue to receive 2 percent annual salary increases.

As the Faculty of Arts and Sciences continues to recover from the impact of the financial crisis, a growing Sociology Department remains constrained by a faculty size that has not kept pace with the rise in undergraduate concentrators.

Compared to peer institutions like Yale and Princeton, FAS has reduced its deficit, which today stands around $35 million, more efficiently than other universities.

Children’s Hospital Boston, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, stands to lose $21 million in funding for the training of new pediatricians if President Obama’s tightened budget proposal passes in Congress for the 2012 fiscal year.

Faced with the recent departure of about a quarter of its faculty, the Classics Department expects that it will take several years to fill the positions, according to Classics Department Chair John M. Duffy.

It is a tremendous relief to see that the projected deficit this academic year is only $35 million. This is an extraordinary feat.