Regents efficiency review has cost $5.4 million to date

IOWA CITY - Since the state Board of Regents launched an efficiency review of its public universities nearly two years ago in hopes of saving millions and improving the quality of services and education, it has spent about $5.4 million on consulting fees and expenses.

And those costs are expected to grow to at least $5.8 million, according to contracts with the consulting firms still working on the 'transparent, inclusive efficiency review.”

At the review's start in early 2014, the board hired Deloitte Consulting LLC to head the project at an initial cost of about $2.4 million. A few months later, the board agreed to pay Deloitte another $1 million for its work on the study's second phase.

As part of its initial contract, Deloitte subcontracted the academic portions of the review to KH Consulting Group. When a scheduling conflict prevented KH from completing the work, the board hired Ad Astra and Pappas Consulting Group to finish the academic assessment.

It agreed to pay $100,000 to Ad Astra and $604,000 to Pappas - not including expenses for travel and other related costs.

Although Deloitte wanted to help the universities implement their recommendations, the Board of Regents instead agreed to let the universities implement many of the suggestions with the help of two firms new to the project - Huron Consulting Group and Chazey Partners.

The board agreed to pay $550,648 for Chazey's work and $895,000 to Huron.

Those contracts - including the $3.5 million paid to Deloitte for both fees and travel - come to about $5.7 million.

To date, the board has paid $5.2 million of the contract fees and $165,377 in travel expenses to Huron, Chazey, and Pappas. Those travel expenses, broken down, include $94,175 to Chazey, $34,093 to Huron, and $37,109 to Pappas, according to Board of Regents spokesman Josh Lehman.

'There may be more payments to Huron and Pappas, but Ad Astra and Chazey's payments are complete,” Lehman said.

Deloitte's initial review of potential efficiencies on the University of Iowa, Iowa State University, and University of Northern Iowa campuses projected possible savings of between $30 million to $80 million a year. Officials since have said those projections could be lower and slower to materialize.