I worked at one place that moved their fiscal year from the academic year to the calendar year. It was manageable, but, yes, we did have to get our expenditures taken care of by end of December. There was a bit of a grace period in January for submitting paperwork. (Because nobody is around at the end of December to close the books, anyway.)
I know I'm late, but as an accountant, I must disagree. Closing the books of a large university is a huge amount of work. The period is open through part of January while we finish closing, not because we got to take extra time at the holidays. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised that your accounting staff were not allowed to take any extra vacation days (beyond school wide shutdown days/holidays) in December due to prepping for close.
/gripe