This committee was formed as a result of administrative desire to alleviate part of SUNYIT’s budget problems by cutting the cost of “academic administration.” At some point, the committee started being referred to as an Academic Reorganization Committee. The charge, however, was extended by the Faculty Assembly to include consideration of costs other than Academic Administration, and this was agreed to by the administration.
There was agreement that all necessary budget information would be made available to the committee. While it is clear that reasonable attempts to provide this information were made, it is also clear that the budgeting process at SUNYIT is such that it is not easily possible to access and summarize necessary information so that valid comparisons and recommendations can be made.
We also mention that the Planning and Budgeting Committee reported to this committee that: during the previous academic year they were similarly asked to make recommendations for lowering operating costs at SUNY IT; that they seriously considered numerous options; that they made a recommendation to the administration which would result in a projected cost saving of roughly $60,000; that they were informed in May 2006 that the recommendation was accepted by the administration; but, that they were informed in June 2006[, at their next meeting,] that significant-cost administrative hiring decisions were made that directly conflicted with the May recommendation and agreement, and that rather than saving $60,000 there was additional expenditure of over $100,000. This sequence is relevant since there were a number of times during the deliberations of this committee that the sentiment surfaced that it didn’t make much, if any, difference what the faculty recommends. [Such sentiment reflects an apparent decrease in morale among faculty that ...].
With respect to academic administration, the cost currently involves salaries of four deans (although one such salary is offset by the saving of a full professor salary) and twenty-eight (28) extra-service/course-release payments. The latter range from a single 4-credit course reduction to a $15,000 stipend with no course reduction, a $9,250 stipend with 8 credit hours of course reduction, and an $8,000 stipend with 4 credit hours of course reduction. In our careful consideration of the “also-receives” it became apparent that most of them could be reasonably justified as necessary to support functions and activities which the college must provide if SUNYIT is going to maintain - and increase - its reputation and its draw as a special unit within the SUNY system. It also appears, based on the relatively few non-academic positions we considered, that [for most of the] well-established personnel costs on campus, such justifications could also be made.
The committee attempted to determine why there was a focus on cutting academic administrative cost. They were informed that academic administrative costs seemed to be more “aberrant” than other forms of expenditure within SUNY. However, the committee was not provided any corroboration for this sentiment. In investigating this issue it became easy to see why no corroboration (or, for that matter, refutation) of this sentiment was given. Each of the numerous SUNY units we investigated deals with these costs in different ways and there is no easy means to determine the degree of our normalcy or aberrance. [In attempting to determine a valid comparison, the committee looked at (as much as they could get of) the compensation schemes for a number of SUNY units. It became clear that] {In addition,} it is easy to argue that SUNYIT is unique within SUNY in combination of program mix and student body (program mix: high percentage of high-cost programs – in particular, technology and nursing; student body: 4 year undergraduate with a primary focus and emphasis on upper division, and graduate). While there seems to be some undercurrent of sentiment that SUNYIT be compared with the Ag. and Tech schools, the committee finds such a comparison inappropriate. It is not unreasonable to argue that, given the specialized-college nature of the SUNY Institute of Technology, the soundest comparison is between SUNYIT and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry. The enrollment figures are comparable (ESF: 2279, SUNYIT: 2588), the annual FTE are comparable (ESF: 1743, SUNYIT: 1757), and the mix is comparable (graduate students in ESF: 542, SUNYIT: 571).
What are not comparable, however, are the annual operating budgets:
ESF$34.2 million (6.7% increase over 2005-06)
SUNY IT$19.6 million (3.7% increase over 2005-06)
(these figures were reported in summary in the local
newspaper; SUNY financial plan has the same figure
for ESF, but only $17.6 million for SUNYIT)
and the number of employees:
ESF495
SUNY IT278.
While there may be special reasons for the higher-cost nature of ESF, it seems unlikely that this could justify a close to 100% increase. It also seems that comparison with ESF is at least as valid as comparison with, say, Delhi, Cobleskill,
or with other schools with little or no graduate students, and with a significantly higher ratio of lower to upper division FTE. While this comparison does not constitute solid proof, it does lend support to the argument that we are not overfunded. Three or four million dollars (of the 34.2 – 19.6 differential) used for student recruitment would go a long way toward re-generating the reputation and image of the Institute of Technology as the place to be for those interested in modern Technology, in much the same way that ESF is the place to be if interested in Forestry, or Maritime is the place to be if interested in Seafaring.
One fact that evolved during our deliberations was that our problem is primarily one of revenue and not one of cost. There are many dimensions to this problem and it is not reasonable to expect an ad-hoc short-term committee to solve it, but two related glaring dimensions of the problem need to be mentioned (and addressed):
1)The total amount of funds available to offer as student recruitment incentive is comparatively pitiful (less than $100,000 at SUNY IT
and $1.5 million at Alfred [figure not corroborated], for example).
2)Income generated by fundraising at SUNY IT is also comparatively extremely low. This involves both non-academic fund-raising and academic grant and research funding to be used to support student recruitment.
Returning to the question of academic reorganization, we mention that institutional inertia is difficult to overcome and doing so could potentially cause more problems than it would solve. It is interesting to note that in the academic year 2003/2004, interim VPAA John Anderson met with three deans and two co-deans almost weekly for the full year in an attempt to generate a cost-saving reorganization. All possible models were considered; for example: no deans, two deans (one of students, one of faculty), three deans, five deans. Elaborate compensation schemes were studied based on number of faculty and number of students. The result was an elaborate report prepared by VP Anderson enumerating the savings/added costs for each scheme, presented to this group. This is reported from memory since the VPAA collected the report after presenting it, but the upshot was that the best situation savings were less than $20,000 and it was not worth the disruption that would be caused.
The committee makes the following recommendations to help alleviate the budget/cost discrepancy:
1) Retain the four-school structure. Have each of the four deans and the Vice President for Academic Affairs teach one course per semester. This represents a savings of $30,000.
2) Change as many twelve month management confidential appointments as possible from 12-month to 11-month contracts (or 10 month, if desired). For example, for the four deans, this would result in a savings of roughly $45,000. Such an offer should also be made to other non-essential 12-month employees, conceivably generating another $40,000 in saving.
3) Save another $20,000 - $30,000 in academic administrative costs by distributing cuts to each of the four schools. This distribution should be based on FTEs in the schools.
4) For currently unfilled and currently interim non-academic positions, do a careful evaluation of the necessity of these positions, attempting to generate savings of $50,000 - $100,000. This may involve transforming some positions from full-time to half-time.