Iowa regents aim to revive efficiency review at universities

URBANDALE — A decade after Iowa’s Board of Regents launched its “most comprehensive efficiency study” in a quarter century — which consultants at the time said could save up to $80 million a year — regents this month revived the charge to find new revenues and efficiencies across the universities they oversee.

“The time is right for a new formal review to see what additional measures can be undertaken,” former Board of Regents President Sherry Bates said at her last meeting as a regent Dec. 3.

In charging the board’s Investment and Finance Committee that day to “lead a comprehensive review of new/additional revenue streams and cost efficiencies across all regent institutions,” Bates referenced the board’s 2014 Transparent Inclusive Efficiency Review — known as TIER.

Although a consultant at the time estimated savings of $30-$80 million a year, board spokesman Josh Lehman on Tuesday told The Gazette the office doesn’t have a total TIER savings to report.

“It would be safe to say that tens of millions have been saved or reallocated in the decade since TIER,” he said.

Bates in her remarks earlier this month also said, “The TIER review from a decade ago was very successful, and there have been additional efforts to find savings and efficiencies since then as well.”

“The board has been clear that this is a priority,” she said. “And our universities have been doing their part.”

But regent Kurt Tjaden — chair of the board’s Investment and Finance Committee and new board president pro tem — said “more is needed” and “we are never done.”

“This strategic opportunity is an ability to jointly engage the board office, regent institutions, and third-party experts to challenge and expand our thinking and explore new areas of opportunity to ensure our future financial foundation remains strong,” Tjaden said.

The renewed efficiency charge comes amid higher education belt-tightening nationally and locally, with the Legislature last session rejecting the board’s request for a $30.3 million, 5-percent funding bump — offering instead no general fund increase and just $4 million more for legislative-specific priorities on the campuses.

The universities — although reporting modest enrollment bumps this fall — also are bracing for an “enrollment cliff” threatening to impact tuition revenue. And federal funding for the campuses’ mission-driven research remains unstable and unpredictable due to rule and priority changes.

“The emphasis for us always is, how can we find additional money to invest in education and research,” University of Iowa President Barbara Wilson told the board in November when reporting efficiency efforts on her campus of late. “We're not trying to save money just for the sake of saving it. We want to plow money back into how we educate students, how we conduct research, and how we can save costs in those efforts.”

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‘Being as efficient as we can’

In listing her campus’ efficiency efforts, Wilson reported closing or merging 26 majors, departments, or programs since 2021 — including Sustainable Science, Geography, Social Justice, Rhetoric, and Portuguese.

“We're always looking at student numbers,” she said. “We spend a lot of time looking at where students are going, what they're interested in, and being as efficient as we can.”

She highlighted a public-private partnership for the operation of UI’s utility system — producing annual savings and investment income the campus can reinvest into research, instruction, construction and faculty.

“We entered this amazing P3 partnership, and I just share with you that administrative decision is resulting in a pretty significant payout for us every year of resources that we can devote to academics and to research in particular,” Wilson said.

To date, according to Wilson, the P3 program has supported 77 faculty recruitments and 35 faculty retentions, benefiting 11 colleges. It’s jump-started 33 research teams and helped launch 69 startup teams — bringing in $32-plus million in external funding.

And UI has removed some of its aging property accruing deferred maintenance costs.

“We're talking and thinking always about shrinking our footprint, and we've done a lot of work in the last several years,” Wilson said. “We've eliminated 41,000 square feet of property and buildings, and a lot of savings is going into that as well.”

Outgoing Iowa State University President Wendy Wintersteen highlighted her campus’ “One IT” effort aimed at aligning information technology services, eliminating duplication and enhancing campus security.

That effort to date has amounted to an estimated annual savings topping $2 million.

Likewise, ISU efforts to centralize and streamline its finance and operations should save $550,000 over five years and pare down the number of staff it needs not only in the finance department but in human resources as well — where Iowa State has reduced its full-time employee count by 30 over the last decade.

Individual colleges and academic units — in looking internally for efficiencies and reductions — collectively have saved nearly $2 million.

“Given the size and complexity of a university like Iowa State, a certain level of administrative cost is necessary, and this is measured nationally,” Wintersteen said, pointing to a graphic showing Iowa State at second-to-last among its peers in the amount spent on administration for every $1 spent on instruction.

“We spend 11 cents on administration for every dollar spent on instruction,” Wintersteen said. “And so we are directing our resources to where they matter most, student learning and academic excellence.”

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University of Northern Iowa President Mark Nook during the board meeting highlighted one aspect of his campus’ efficiency efforts — collaborating on procurement contracting with UI and Iowa State.

Savings, which started around $2.8 million in 2017, swelled to $5.4 million in 2024.

He also talked about electrical and steam reductions, keeping costs in check.

“Our electrical usage — mostly because of peak load shaving that we have done, but also some lighting changes and building efficiencies — has been reduced by $6.1 million over that period,” Nook said. “For steam usage, we produce our own steam, we've saved about $10.7 million over that time.

“So in a 16-year period, we'd save $17 million or a little over a million dollars a year because of those changes alone.”

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Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com