ISU employees question changes to vetted operations

AMES - During a public forum Monday at Iowa State University that invited the community to weigh in and ask questions about proposed efficiencies to Iowa's public universities, staff and faculty expressed concern about changes to procedures that they say have been vetted, tested and worked well for years.

One employee, for example, raised concerns about a proposal to create a 'print green strategy” that would reduce local printer use and paper consumption by eliminating some of the 4,900 'local printers” identified across the three campuses.

He asked whether Deloitte Consulting LLC - the firm the Board of Regents is paying $3.3 million for its systemwide efficiency review - considered faculty and staff time when developing the proposal.

'If we have to walk 10 minutes to go get the printing, that seems very inefficient,” the faculty member said.

Shomic Saha, senior manager for Deloitte, said the team isn't suggesting the universities do away with all local printers. But, he said, some users could become comfortable walking a few extra paces to save money and paper.

And Rick Ferraro, a director for Deloitte who is heading the Board of Regent review, said his team has not yet taken a comprehensive inventory of all printer use. He said that must come during implementation, if the board agrees to move forward with the suggestion. 'That is the time to go get information on who would be absolutely disrupted,” Ferraro said.

Another employee mentioned a campuswide information technology evaluation conducted at Iowa State last year that found faculty members believe localized services enable them to better meet the educational mission of the institution - rather than centralized services, as proposed by Deloitte in some areas.

'Did you take that into account?” the employee asked. 'Do you have that report?”

And still another employee told the Deloitte team during the forum that many ISU departments have invested time and money in training staff based on specific needs, and he has concerns about consolidating and centralizing services.

'There is no intent to centralize every service on campus - there just is not,” Ferraro said. 'We will keep critical components at the local level. We have to draw a balance between the two. But it's not easy, and it does require us to work together.”

Deloitte has been working since March to evaluate the efficiency of operations at ISU, University of Iowa, and University of Northern Iowa. The firm first highlighted areas of possible savings and then pointed toward 17 specific opportunities that it projected could save the universities $30 million to $80 million a year.

The Board of Regents already has agreed to move forward with four of those opportunities, and it will decide in November whether to move ahead with another eight administrative opportunities. The final five academic-related opportunities have been put on hold until a later date.

Deloitte has said the eight efficiencies currently under consideration could save the universities tens of millions of dollars and eliminate the need for as many as 250 positions.

Only one person at Monday's forum directly addressed the issue of job cuts - specifically asking how proposed staff reductions would work at a time when the university is growing. Iowa State has set enrollment records for six straight years, and it now boasts a total enrollment of 34,732, making it the largest public university in Iowa.

Virginia Fraser, senior manager for Deloitte, said staff reductions at all three universities are estimates based on current student populations.

'Iowa State is a university that's growing, and you expect enrollment to increase,” Fraser said. 'An analysis of how this all could unfold would have to be re-baselined as enrollment changes and the needs of campus change.”