Budget and Planning Task Force

Final Report

The Chair of the Task Force, Provost and Vice Chancellor John M. Dunn, clarified expectations and operational procedures at the first meeting of the group. The Committee framed expectations in a set of Guiding Principles that emphasized the importance of confidentiality, respect for diverse opinions, and a commitment to work together in a collegial manner. The list of Guiding Principles, without prioritization, included:

• Sustain, and where possible, enhance quality academic programs

• Retain the primacy of the institution’s mission as a doctoral-extensive research university

• Differentiate reductions within and across Vice Chancellor areas

• Identify new sources of revenue, where possible

• Minimize impact of reductions on programs that enhance diversity

• Review opportunities to improve organizational efficiency

• Reduce administrative costs

• Acknowledge and value the need for change

• Focus on long-term outcomes associated with recommendations

• Use the Southern at 150: Building Excellence Through Commitment strategic plan in offering recommendations

• Review and analyze recommendations offered by the colleges and Vice Chancellor areas

• Emphasize the needs of undergraduate and graduate students

• Ensure that enrollment will increase and be sustained

• Honor contractual commitments and obligations to personnel

• Acknowledge that function should not be impeded by structure

The diverse composition of the Task Force with respect to gender, ethnicity, responsibility area, academic background and experience, and college affiliation, added immeasurably to the give and take that occurred in committee deliberations and ultimately to the recommendations contained in this report. A list of Task Force Committee Members appears in Appendix A. In addition to those appointed members, the Task Force was fortunate to have available for all meetings the presence and input of Carol Henry, Budget Director, Susan Ferry, Assistant to the Chancellor, and Kay Zivkovich, Associate Professor, School of Art and Design and Intern to the Provost.

The body of the report that follows contains Task Force recommendations divided into four major areas: Administrative Actions, Efficiency Enhancements, Program Actions, and Revenue Enhancements and Cost Savings. While some of the recommendations could be repeated in other areas, the Committee chose instead to minimize length of the report. The Task Force reached consensus on the following recommendations and submits them to the Chancellor for his review and action. Each recommendation is submitted as an action item with the understanding that some can be implemented soon; others later, and some after additional input and study prior to action. The relationship of the recommendations to Southern at 150: Building Excellence Through Commitment is referenced in Appendix B.

• Current budget climate and realities of administrative costs;

• Administrative positions that could be eliminated or, if necessary, left unfilled for at least a few years;

• Strategies by which administrative functions could be reduced, merged, shared by at least two other units, or provided through contractual services;

• Organizational charts that suggested a need for streamlining or consolidation;

• Number of academic departments (64) which is large for a campus of our size;

• Analyze current functions and methods by which realigned responsibilities could produce greater efficiency or cost effectiveness;

• Where and for how long money could be saved without causing irreparable damage and without having lasting impact on academics or student campus life; and

• Services considered essential, those only desirable, and those, which are helpful, but not necessary.

AA-1: Review the administrative structure within each Vice Chancellor area with the commitment to eliminate and/or reduce top-level administrative positions.

AA-2: Examine and modify the working titles used by administrative units to convey the specific duties and responsibilities of the position. Working titles should minimize the use of “director” when no other person reports to the position.

AA-3: Review policies and procedures associated with administrative/professional and civil service job classifications to pursue flexibility both internally and externally in functional titles and salary administration.

AA-4: Revise the University’s reported published organizational structure to minimize what appears to be an excessive number of boxes, titles and reporting lines. The information conveyed in its current format is misleading and may convey to external groups that the University is much heavier administratively than is the case.

AA-5: Review the title, state support, and reporting line of the Associate Chancellor for Economic Development to find alternative and less expensive approaches to accomplishing functions associated with this office. For example, the Research Park and Economic Development functions could be split. Personnel at the Research Park could report to and be headed by the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Dean. An appropriate academic dean could head the Economic Development function. If splitting the responsibilities of the Associate Chancellor for Economic Development should prove infeasible, the University should change the title of Associate Chancellor for Economic Development to indicate its more functional nature--e.g. Director (or Coordinator) of Economic Development.

AA-6: Eliminate the position of Vice Chancellor for Administration. Given the current financial picture and the need to reduce administrative overhead, this action seems warranted. Offices that report to the VC for Administration should merge into two—e.g. Business Affairs and Campus Services—with direct reporting lines, as needed, to the Chancellor.

AA-7: Explore the structure of Student Affairs with a commitment to the following functions: quality of student life, student health, housing, and recreation.

All functions under the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management related to Records and Registration should move under the Provost. Functions under the Director of International Programs and Services dealing with recruitment and admissions should be included in the move. Graduate admission functions under the Graduate Dean should also move and merge with enrollment management functions under the Provost. The Vice Chancellor should restructure programs remaining in Student Affairs to reduce significantly reliance on state funds.

AA-8: Reduce FTE (Full Time Equivalent) associated with the following positions: Associate Provost for Budget and Planning, Director of the Core Curriculum, Director of Communication Across the Curriculum, and Director of Assessment to create a Dean of Undergraduate Studies position reporting to the Provost. This position would play a major role in coordinating and advocating for undergraduate programs with responsibility in numerous areas, including the core curriculum and program assessment.

AA-9: Review the administrative and organizational structure of each college with the goal of decreasing the administrative positions and costs. There should be no more than two Associate Deans in larger colleges and no more than one Associate Dean in smaller colleges. Colleges should also pursue the possibility of merging small departments with each other or into a larger department and explore the combination or elimination of other administrative functions to eliminate positions.

AA-10: Analyze the organizational structure of the School of Medicine and the number of Associate/Assistant Provosts and Deans in light of the need to reduce administrative costs and the appearance of excessive administrative overhead. The title and reporting line of the Dean and Provost should also change to ensure that necessary coordination occurs with respect to the main campus. All duplicative administrative functions should merge with an appropriate department or function on the main campus.

AA-11: Reduce administrative overhead associated with the School of Law. This reduction might include the elimination and/or merger of selected administrative offices.

AA-12: Implement the school administrative structure proposed by CASA—i.e., a Dean with four directors. This structure should help to focus the College and to provide greater clarity to others as to the mission of the College. An alternative to this approach is to review programs/departments within the College of Applied Sciences and Arts to assess their fit and relationship to similar programs offered by other colleges. For example, merge Information Management/Technology into the Department of Management in COBA. Similarly, Architecture and Interior Design could move to the School of Art and Design. The outcome of these moves would enhance faculty and student critical mass and improve the efficiency of course offerings.

AA-13: Acknowledge and support the plan developed and submitted by the College of Education and Human Services. The reduction from eight to four departments and resultant reduction in administrative overhead is commendable.

AA-14: Assess FTE (Full Time Equivalent) and length of contract for Chairs in light of the size (faculty, students, student credit hours, research program, etc.) and complexity of the unit and adjust accordingly. Results of this analysis might imply that some chairs have reduced administrative FTE and/or shortened annual contracts, e.g., 10 or 11, rather than 12 months.

AA-15: Create an Institute for the Study of Contemporary Society housed within the College of Liberal Arts. Departments that would merge into the Institute include: Black American Studies, Sociology, and possibly Women’s Studies. If implemented, this proposal may reduce administrative overhead and create a critical mass of faculty to address and study significant issues and needs confronting society.

• The number of processes used and the need to eliminate duplication of effort;

• Strategies that enhance efficiency, eliminate paperwork, and reduce costs;

• Access to and use of technology and its application to admissions, human resources, and business practices;

• Administrative rules and oversight that add costs and impede efficiency;

• The value of change and the need to “rethink” past practices and methods.

EE-1: Review the University curriculum to assess whether unnecessary duplication of selected courses exists. A beginning point might involve a review of courses in various disciplines in the areas of statistics, research methods, marketing, information technology and management. The Committee recommends convening a task force composed of Associate Deans or appropriate representatives from each college to review courses with the goal of reducing redundant offerings by at least 75%.

EE-2: Foster interdisciplinary work by making it easier for students to cross department/program lines. Graduate programs should explore the use of faculty and courses in other departments/programs to add greater depth and breadth to the recognized fields of study for the Ph.Ds.

EE-3: Standardize graduate student application processes to reduce the administrative load on departments. Departments would control selection of students, but the University should handle centrally the final processing of applications, including collection of fees. Graduate application fees would return to the departments. Fees should reflect the cost of the application process.

EE-4: Review the status of all academic programs to ensure that the number of undergraduate and graduate students and/or degrees awarded within the program justify the program’s continuation. Given the importance of other variables in assessing a program’s viability, the Provost should use the criteria recently passed by the Faculty Senate for guidance along with other University policies, Board guidelines, and agreement with the Faculty Association.

EE-5: Increase the use of technology to create a user-friendly online undergraduate advising system. While some students will need to access faculty and academic advisers, a well-conceived and developed system should reduce costs associated with advising. The University should review currently available commercial systems as an initial step.

EE-6: Review university policy on space allocation to better accommodate the needs of faculty and programs.

EE-7: Undertake a comprehensive analysis of policy, procedures, and practices associated with Human Resources. The study committee should consist of personnel from civil service, AP, faculty and administrators to ensure a comprehensive review and analysis from various levels and perspectives. The goal of the committee would be to eliminate unnecessary or duplicative procedures, streamline hiring practices, and essentially reengineer the operation.

EE-8: Appoint a committee to investigate how best to coordinate and merge the functions of purchasing, travel requests, billing, and collecting to increase cost effectiveness.

EE-9: Apply better use of technology to operations in Records and Registration, Bursar, and Financial Aid offices. Improve efficiency and cut costs by including electronic submission of grades and better use of technology to their operations.

EE-10: Explore changes in policy/legislation to sell or donate outdated inventory to other public entities.

EE-11: Increase the dollar minimum value on tagged equipment as determined by the campus to match the limit set by the State. Explore, too, if the value of an item should follow a depreciated schedule.

EE-12: Review the long-term cost of deferred maintenance. While it is essential to provide funds for academic programs, the Administration must exercise care to avoid further erosions to the infrastructure, appearance, and cleanliness of the university.

EE-13: Encourage greater use of faculty, staff, and student volunteers to maintain and beautify the University campus. The University community needs to demonstrate visibly our commitment to and support for an environmentally sensitive campus.

EE-14: Review functions assigned to the President’s Office with those of the Chancellor’s Office to reduce and eliminate redundancy.

EE-15: Review the distribution of Returned Overhead Dollars to assess their effectiveness in the current distributed model --- i.e. 30% to the Dean/Department; 30% to the Chancellor; and 40% to the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies. Consider supporting Library and other central costs prior to distribution of ROH funds.

EE-16: Analyze the effectiveness of Information Technology, its reporting lines, costs, and relationship to the needs of both administrative and academic programs. Move responsibility, reporting line, and leadership for Information Technology to the Library.

EE-17: Appoint a task force to review instructional support services offered by the Library, as well as those provided through the academic colleges (MCMA and COLA), to see if integration of these resources might lead to increased efficiencies and enhanced services.

EE-18: Review student-to-faculty ratios in the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts and the College of Business and Administration with the goal of developing a more favorable ratio. Colleges could improve ratios by increasing faculty lines and/or enhancing student admission standards.

EE-19: Review labor union jurisdiction issues to improve efficiency in the maintenance of campus facilities.  When making job assignments, the University should exercise due caution to ensure that multiple crafts are not utilized except when absolutely necessary to meet operational needs.

EE-20: Establish a method of accountability to the businesses “incubated” in the Southern Illinois Research Park, e.g., a five-year plan to grow, prosper, and become independent. Accountability plans would help to increase/change new business operations coming into the facility.

EE-21: Enhance communication between the Economic and Regional Development Center (Southern Illinois Research Park) and the academic colleges to increase coordination and synergism.

EE-22: Improve the image and marketing of SIUC with a goal of enhancing the University’s presence regionally, nationally, and internationally. Recent changes in reporting lines and organizational structure provide Media Communication and Resources with the resources needed to produce greater results in increasing and enhancing the institution’s image.

EE-23: Establish a policy that allows colleges and administrative units to carry-forward funds from one fiscal year to another. Units need flexibility in managing the efficient and wise use of resources and expenditures. Policies detrimental to this goal are not in the best interest of the needs of the campus and state.

EE-24: Encourage greater use of the recycling program to increase revenue and decrease costs.

EE- 25: Encourage collaboration between administrative units and academic departments to ensure that resources are maximized in the recruitment and retention of highly qualified graduate assistants.

• Assuring proposed actions would make sense, given the current University mission and new directions mapped out in the Southern at 150 document;

• Determining whether programmatic changes would enhance services to student, faculty, and staff, despite the potential for budgetary reductions;

• Requiring that programmatic changes be evaluated not just in light of current figures on enrollments, student credit hours, degrees granted, etc. but also in light of a longer-term view as envisaged in Southern at 150;

• Taking advantage of programmatic enhancements that demonstrate potential for positive synergies;

• Ensuring that proactive recommendations made by units were respected to the extent possible;

• Considering changes in the number of reporting lines a dean or director could efficiently handle;

• Making the shift of nonacademic units from state funds to non-state funds, a process the Task Force deemed essential.

PA-1: Encourage the College of Engineering to move forward with plans to eliminate the BS degrees in Electrical Engineering Technology and Mechanical Engineering Technology.

PA-2: Merge the Department of Computer Science with either the Department of Electrical and Computing Engineering in the College of Engineering or the Department of Mathematics in the College of Science. A merger of this nature will increase critical faculty mass and enhance cooperation and communication between these units. The outcome should lead to increased research funding and productivity.

PA-3: Merge the department of Microbiology with Medical Biochemistry. The merger will help to reduce administrative overhead, enhance critical mass, and reduce redundancies.

PA-4: Restructure the College of Liberal Arts and combine departments or create schools to reduce the number of units that directly report to the Dean. Consider merging the Departments of Speech Communication and Theatre Arts and moving the new unit to the College of Mass Communication and Media Arts.

PA-5: Move the Honors Program to the Office of the Provost. Such a move would provide maximum buy-in and support for an Honors Program and invite campus-wide participation in the Honors Program.

PA-6: The College of Liberal Arts should move forward with necessary planning, including issues related to notification and governance, to close the department of Linguistics and to move programs in TESOL to the Department of English and CESL to the Provost’s Office.

PA-7: Explore benefits of moving the Paralegal Program from the College of Liberal Arts to the School of Law. This move would provide a cost savings to COLA and allow the School of Law and their students to benefit early from the interaction with paralegal professionals and the roles they play in the delivery of legal services.

PA-8: Encourage the College of Applied Sciences and Arts to continue to reduce the number of Associate degree programs. Such reductions seem appropriate and consistent with the mission of the University and direction of CASA.

PA-9: Move leadership and responsibility for University Women’s Professional Advancement to the Office of the Associate Provost for Personnel and Student Policy.

PA-10: Merge the Office of Research Development and Administration with the Office of Research and Projects Fiscal Management. This recommendation is predicated on the assumption that the merger of the two will not impede the ability of the institution to maintain an appropriate fiduciary oversight of income and expenditures.

PA-11: Discourage efforts to further distance the SIUC’s School of Medicine from the main campus. A long-standing relationship exists between Carbondale and Springfield in the commitment to train physicians and scientists and thoughts of minimizing this relationship in the future due to “distance” fails to recognize new technologies and the value of scientific collaboration and support in research and clinical activities.

PA-12: Programmatic data developed for various internal and external reports should be provided to all chairs, deans, provost, and the academic community in a timely and consistent basis. Efforts should be made to ensure that the academic units understand the following: Purpose of report; how report is to be utilized; source and derivation of data; and relationship of one report to another.

PA-13: Review the structure of Student Development to combine functions and to eliminate positions.

PA-14: Eliminate offices of counseling center and career services under the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Enrollment Management. Functions under the counseling center should move to Student Health Programs. Counseling psychologists would be supervised under the Student Health Program’s Mental Health Services. The Women’s Services area would be supervised and integrated into the Women’s Health Clinic.

Decentralize the placement function within Career Services to individual colleges and move testing functions under the Provost.

PA-15: Merge the Clinical Center and Student Health Services Center. The value of such a move would help the Clinical Center improve its accounting procedures, particularly billing and insurance capability. Challenges to the Clinical Center involve continuing to provide quality care, including serving the poor and insuring that University students continue to have a viable, quality center that provides needed supervision for them as part of their educational program.

PA-16: Charge the various offices on campus that protect the rights of students, faculty and staff to meet, review, and eliminate redundancies and resolve disputes in an efficient and effective manner. These offices have promulgated a convoluted set of procedures that foster numerous systemic problems that inhibit a timely and organized response to disputes. Eliminate the office of Faculty Ombudsman. Issues related to academic employees should be handled through existing and appropriate grievance procedures. Educate students, faculty, and staff of their respective appeal avenues. Train supervisors, chairs, and deans in dispute resolution techniques to reduce the number of administrative appeals. The Committee believes that supervisors, chairs, and deans need additional training in dispute resolution and sensitivity regarding the right to appeal and grieve.

PA-17: Reduce Institutional Advancement’s reliance on state funds by 50% over a five-year time frame. The amount of state funds currently provided to Institutional Advancement seems proportionately high in light of critical competing needs within the institution. Some reduction might occur with better alignment of units within Institutional Advancement to avoid duplication of effort, e.g., the Alumni Office and the SIU Foundation. The unit might organize along the lines of external (development) and internal (fiduciary and recordkeeping activities).

PA-18: Implement the proposed plan to merge the management and operation of the Arena and Shryock. Cooperation between personnel in Athletics and Shryock and development of an effective cost-savings strategy should enhance the number and quality of future productions.

PA-19: Eliminate the Transit Service. While the use of door-to-door on campus delivery is nice, the costs, including incremental costs, associated with the program should be eliminated. In addition, the perception that the University has such luxuries sends a wrong message internally and externally.

PA-20: Continue Southern Illinois University Carbondale commitment toward the delivery of health care services for rural populations from the School of Medicine as well as other Carbondale-based programs that prepare students for health care fields.

PA-21: Provide an outplacement service and adequate resources to assist with transition of employees subject to layoff and job displacement.

In discussing how the University might increase revenue, the Task Force considered strategies to:

• capture the entrepreneurial spirit of the faculty and staff to increase its revenue base;

• take advantage of our strengths and myriad opportunities to better manage and contribute to growth of the University;

• review the success and future of cost recovery centers;

• outsource selected activities and drive savings into other areas;

• increase fees and use tuition differential to strengthen academic programs;

• analyze differences in costs associated with various programs.

RE-1: Review functions of the Department of Public Safety to see if there are any that can be shared or merged with the City of Carbondale. This recommendation is offered only with the caveat that safety needs of students, faculty, and staff cannot be compromised. In addition, public safety officers must be sensitized to the cultural and diverse nature of the student and faculty populations that comprises the University community.

RE-2: Initiate a campus-wide campaign to help faculty/staff/students become more responsible stewards of the campus setting (particularly as regards cleanliness) and its utilities (particularly in regards to turning off lights, reporting water leaks, being responsible about climate control, etc.).

RE-3: Explore the feasibility of outsourcing several services including: travel services, printing and duplicating, telephone service, janitorial services, dining services, Touch of Nature Management, grounds maintenance, etc. The analysis should include determination of a current cost per unit with a view toward providing identical or similar services at a lower cost. The cost per unit should include all direct and indirect costs, including employee benefits, supervision costs, supplies, and facilities costs. The goal, of course, is to provide the same level of service for less.

RE-4: Limit employment of outside consultants to those rare cases when the university cannot identify in-house experts. An RFP should be disseminated both within and outside the university setting to assure procurement of services at the lowest cost while maintaining a consistent level of service. Clearly significant value exists in securing the services of selected firms and individuals for consultation. The University must consider the expense of such arrangements carefully, perhaps more so than in the recent past. The administration should obtain buy-in from the wider University community prior to formalizing arrangements and should accord greater attention to the use of talent within the University prior to assuming that assistance is needed from “outside.”

RE-5: Increase the use of faculty to address campus-wide issues and needs related to marketing, communication, and visual productions. The process described in Recommendation RE-4 should be followed prior to engaging outside sources.

RE-6: Expedite current plans to engage in a University-wide Capital Development Campaign. This effort needs careful coordination with departments and colleges to ensure that the campaign enhances and does not detract from or impede efforts currently underway.

RE-7: Continue to reduce the Athletics deficit while simultaneously reducing state funds earmarked for Athletics by approximately 25%. The committee recommends that Athletics become self-supporting over the next few years by increasing ticket sales and corporate sponsorships.

RE-8: The University Press, the Clinical Center, and Continuing Education all provide valuable, quality services that help to enhance the image of the University and to provide valuable services. The Provost should carefully review the budgets of the University Press, the Clinical Center, and Continuing Education with the intent of increasing profit and reducing reliance on General Revenue dollars.

RE-9: Encourage the Chancellor and President via the Illinois Board of Higher Education to reduce and/or eliminate public funding currently going to private institutions in Illinois. Given decreasing resources for public higher education, this action seems reasonable and necessary.

RE-10: Move forward with a proposal to assess a fee to students for the support of Morris Library. An increase of $2 per credit hour should generate approximately $1M additional annual funding for the Library. The Task Force finds this fee is necessary given the continuing erosion of state-funded support for the University and, in turn, operations such as the Library. Should the University implement this fee, it should also undertake a special drive to ask faculty and staff to contribute as well to Library support.

RE-11: Review status of the Research Shops to ascertain their viability and costs with the possibility of contracting out services now provided. If the services can be contracted out on a cost effective basis, including all the indirect cost associated with university employment, the shops should be eliminated.

RE-12: Establish a policy that allocation of recurring state funds for research centers must be reviewed on a regular basis to determine if continued allocation of such funds is justified given the rationale for the specific center.  Based on their justification, the Task Force recommends such research centers become self-supporting when appropriate.

Analyze cooperative research centers to discern appropriate homes for their services and functions i.e. within a college or within the Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Dean office. This analysis should consider primary faculty within the center, their academic home, and critical mass needed for the center.

RE-13: Enhance Summer Term course offerings by reviewing standardized course schedules with options for providing schedule flexibility for selected courses. The institution should focus on student needs as the driving force in building a summer schedule. Meeting this commitment might entail a four-day class schedule rather than the traditional five-day arrangement.

RE-14: Expand and enrich the summer course offerings and schedule by providing greater incentives and financial return to the academic units. Formulate a schedule that is sensitive to student needs with the goal of increasing summer enrollment.

RE-15: Review the status of Off-Campus Degree Programs and credit offerings of Continuing Education to see if funds and student credit hours generated through these programs should be “captured” so they more accurately reflect the overall budget and productivity of the University. This “capture” would entail revisiting the issue of state vs. non-state appropriated accounts.

RE-16: Reconsider where to commit recent increases in tuition to see if some of these funds can be dedicated to the preservation of academic courses and programs. Preservation seems particularly critical given projected increases in student enrollment and the need to service core courses.

RE-17: Implement a tuition differential model for selected undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs that have high demand and high cost, e.g., engineering, science, business, and the physician assistant program.

RE-18: Review the contributions made by SIUC to the President’s Office to assess the associated benefit, i.e., return on investment. The University should assess the relationship of funds or charges to the SIUC campus compared to SIUE’s contributions.

The Task Force is cognizant, painfully so, that the current budget crisis is not likely to improve in the near future. The recommendations contained in this report propose positive and definitive changes to address long term budgetary concerns and to support the direction expressed in Southern at 150: Building Excellence Through Commitment. We add therefore a final, concluding recommendation: We recommend that the Chancellor create as a permanent University committee - a Chancellor’s Budget and Planning Task Force. The committee would meet periodically throughout the fiscal year to receive budget updates and information as well as respond to requests from the Chancellor and Provost. The Task Force would be charged to review the status of recommendations contained in this report and to monitor implementation of recommendations approved by the Chancellor. The Task Force would also continue to develop and offer future recommendations in an effort to enhance and expand use of the University resources. We believe that such a Task Force, with broad representation and constituted along the lines of the current Task Force, can become a very helpful and powerful agent for change consistent with the vision, ideals, and aspirations of Southern at 150: Building Excellence Through Commitment.

APPENDIX A