By Craig Chamberlain
New president. New campus. And a group of trustees whose future on the board
was in limbo until this spring.
As the UI Board of Trustees began its annual retreat July 10 in Urbana,
chairman Thomas Lamont, D-Springfield, made note that the past year had
been an eventful one.
Considering the circumstances, "it would have been so easy for us [as
a board] to splinter and go off in a number of different directions,"
he said. Instead, the board and the university made the transitions and
avoided major crises along the way.
In what was promised as, and became, a "dog and pony day" of presentations,
President James Stukel and other top administrators made it clear that more
transition is ahead.
Particularly in the area of procurement and other business operations within
the university, "these are not just small changes we're talking about
here, these are profound changes," Stukel said. The university will
be "a very different place" if most of these changes go forward,
he said, though "it could be a bumpy road."
Since taking office almost one year ago, Stukel has talked about making
the university "paperless" in many of its business operations,
as a means of achieving greater efficiency and saving money.
It was clear from retreat presentations by Craig Bazzani, vice president
for business and finance, that coordinating various systems to make that
goal and others possible has not been, and will not be, an easy task.
When asked when he expected to achieve the paperless goal, Bazzani said
he thought the university would make "significant headway" over
the next three years. In addition to changes in computer systems and networking,
the transition will require retraining of employees and changing some of
the university's culture, he said.
The hoped-for end result, said Stukel and Bazzani, will be a savings of
funds and the elimination of numerous positions. Most of the savings, Stukel
said, will be channeled into academic departments, and positions will be
eliminated only through attrition, retirement and relocation of displaced
employees within the university.
The administration's plans got little criticism from trustees, but trustee
William Engelbrecht, R-Henry, did caution university officials against certain
pitfalls based on his own experience in business. "The savings can
be terribly elusive," he warned. Administrators can be reluctant to
make the necessary changes in personnel, and can start to do new things
just because they are able with new technology, thereby losing the savings
gained, he said.
In other presentations that day, trustees heard reviews of the past year
from all three chancellors. They also heard reports from various management
teams established over the past year to deal with various areas at the university
level: academic affairs; governmental relations; technology and telecommunications;
and administration, business and human resources.
The next day, during its regular meeting, trustees were told that the university
remains mostly in a "wait-and-see" mode in its efforts to keep
medical and surgical programs at the Westside VA Hospital, a major training
site for the UIC College of Medicine.
All indications are that all the parties involved are cooperating with the
General Accounting Office in its investigation of reorganization efforts
by the Department of Veterans Affairs, said Richard Schoell, the university's
director for federal relations. Currently, the investigation is focused
on gathering and analyzing data, and the university wants "to ensure
that there's impartiality" in that process, he said.
Stukel made it clear, however, that though the data gathering process was
important, he expected that the decision ultimately would be a political
one. "We're not putting all our eggs in the analytical basket,"
he said, noting that efforts were under way to build community and political
support, including within the White House.
Trustees also got a preliminary review of budget issues for fiscal year
1997-98. As part of that budget, UIUC will once again be stressing salary
increases - "overwhelmingly and to the greatest extent we can afford,"
according to Larry Faulkner, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs.
Recent experience shows the campus needs to maintain an average annual salary
increase of 3.9 percent just to stay even with 20 other research institutions
defined as its peers, he said. Even with a 4.7 percent increase in fiscal
year 1996, the fourth highest in the group, UIUC did not move out of 19th
place among the 21 schools.
The increases are needed in order to retain and recruit high-quality faculty,
Faulkner said, but "we're working against a target that is moving."
In order to address a serious backlog of deferred maintenance and to ensure
proper spending on building upkeep in the future, Bazzani said the university
would begin with fiscal year 1997-98 to include an item for facilities maintenance
and renovation within the annual operating budget.
Starting with a request of at least $5 million in the first year, the hope
is to increase that each year until the annual investment reaches $23.1
million, he said.
Routine maintenance and renovation of buildings has been deferred in past
years as the money was not supplied in state capital appropriations and
operating budget increases were assigned to other needs, primarily salary.
Bazzani estimated the maintenance backlog at over $400 million.
The $23.1 million figure was arrived at based on a formula dubbed SR3 (for
space repair, renovation and replacement) developed by Harlan Bareither,
a retired senior associate vice president for administration. It calls for
annual spending of 2/3 of 1 percent of building replacement value per year,
with the total estimated cost of replacing all university facilities supported
with state funds set at $2.9 billion. (Not included are buildings within
the university's Auxiliary Facilities System, which is self-supporting.)
This is the spending required, Bazzani said, to ensure that buildings can
remain viable through a hoped-for 100-year lifespan.
###