And your point would be . . .? Did Gunther's actions, right or wrong, cause USM to face the loss of accreditation, academic prestige, 30% of its faculty, on and on? We could find things that every past dean and president has done that may not have been the best, but the purpose today is to end the reign of Shelby Thames and crew, not to beat up everybody else who has had an office and made mistakes.

I think I speak for many on this board who fervently wish the COB posters would start their own message forum where they can fight out their issues. Yes, there are many other colleges who get into disputes here, but you guys are just wearing everybody out with your internal stuff. I've heard it said that you were a bunch of prima donnas, but I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt -- now I'm beginning to believe that some of you are lunatics.

I'm no fan of sham savings from anyone's reorganization of anything.

If anyone has criticisms of the Gunther report, please present them on this board.

But first, we need to see the report.

Robert Campbell

Sorry. Another try to get the tables straight.

 

“ A Guide to Estimating Savings

 

Expenditure Differences as reported in the Budget Book (Table 1)  - $121,370

 

Plus Adjustment for Dean FTE (Table 2)                                             +$463,592

Plus Adjustment for Shifting Development Officers (Table 3)        +$128,500

 

Equals Increase in Administrative Cost from Reorganization          +$470,722

 

Savings from Resignations/Retirements of Deans (Tables 4&5)      -$757,937

 

Equals Estimate “Cash” Savings from Reorganization                       -$287,215

 

Less Gross Reallocations to Teaching (Table 4)                                  -$467,360

 

Net savings of Cash and Reallocation of Deans                                  -$754,575”

 

 

 

 

Reporter,

Thank you.

It's hard to get anything with neat columns in it to come out right in this medium. Your second try looks better than the other two.

Is there any way of making Gunther's Tables 1 through 5 available here, short of scanning them in and showing the jpg's?

Robert Campbell

PS. Did Thames or Lassen ever provide any breakdown of the purported $1.8 million in savings?

quote:

---

Originally posted by: Third Witch
"And your point would be . . .? Did Gunther's actions, right or wrong, cause USM to face the loss of accreditation, academic prestige, 30% of its faculty, on and on? We could find things that every past dean and president has done that may not have been the best, but the purpose today is to end the reign of Shelby Thames and crew, not to beat up everybody else who has had an office and made mistakes. I think I speak for many on this board who fervently wish the COB posters would start their own message forum where they can fight out their issues. Yes, there are many other colleges who get into disputes here, but you guys are just wearing everybody out with your internal stuff. I've heard it said that you were a bunch of prima donnas, but I tried to give you the benefit of the doubt -- now I'm beginning to believe that some of you are lunatics."

---

Third Witch, so you're speaking about CoB faculty the same way the Warren Paving group speaks about all faculty?  I see now.  When they do it it's wrong, but you reserve the right to do it later on.  Are there no prima donnas in COAL or the other colleges?  Must not be, you said so.

Biz Alum,

I agree that there may be some stones coming from BGs glass house.  However, in defense of Bill he was faced with some departments suffering from years of benign neglect and a college where administrative experience or even the desire to acquire it were, and still are, very limited.  It might have been better to hire some new outside chairs but he came in about when the bottom dropped out of our budgets.  I won't presume to speak for him, but the departmental consolidations may have been at least partially a fait accompli caused by the composition of the faculty and a shortage of money.  For example, hiring 3 experienced chairs in COB would cost $500k and that's on the cheap side.

I can say with confidence that he wasn't spouting this as some triumph every other day the way the administrative geniuses that now run USM do.

quote:

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Originally posted by: fin whiz
"Guess who estimated the savings from reorganization?  Linda McFall. She now works for Crofts.  Not wise to attack her estimates if we want Crofts' support."

---

Yes, but when?  An estimate run long ago and one run more recently can both be "right."

quote:

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Originally posted by: A-one, A-two, A-one-two-three
"Yes, but when?  An estimate run long ago and one run more recently can both be "right.""

---

Linda McFall's report of the reorganization savings was given within weeks (maybe days) of her resignation in the fall of 2003.

I don't believe that the two were unrelated.

quote:

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Originally posted by: Robert Campbell
"Does anyone know the date of Linda McFall's report on the suppose savings from the reorganization? Robert Campbell"

---

I first heard the numbers confirmed orally when Shelby put her on the spot at a news conference where she was not one of the designated speakers - don't remember the date but it was after the start of the fall term but before Lassen's promotion into her VP position, which was in early October 2003.

quote:

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Originally posted by: Robert Campbell
"CT, The way you've described it, Linda McFall could have been ordered to confirm numbers invented by others. Robert Campbell"

---

Yes, but that would be speculation on both our parts!  She seemed reluctant (at least hesitant) and a little uncomfortable - he absolutely preened.  It was before the exposure of the bogus enrollment numbers but after the announcement that "Southern Miss" was the largest university in the state, IIRC.

It matters under what circumstances Linda McFall endorsed the claim of $1.8 million saved, because

-- it may not have been her estimate in the first place
-- if Thames pushed her into endorsing the claim, she may have told Crofts about it by now, or may do so in the future

Robert Campbell

A Comment on the

 $1.8 Million in “Savings” from

Reorganization At USM

 

I

 

Reorganization and Administrative Costs

 

We have repeatedly heard reference to the $1.8 million in savings achieved at USM through the reorganization of the Colleges effective Fall 2003.  The term “savings” has been used quite freely in describing an objective of this reorganization although it is not clear if this means an actual reduction in administrative costs or a reallocation of administrative costs to instructional costs as deans/associate deans return to teaching. Let us accept at first that most people would associate a claim of $1.8 million in “savings” to represent cost reductions and examine the facts that appear in the annual “Budget Books” of USM.

 

In Table 1 below, the actual “Dean’s Office” budgets are show as reported in the “Budget Books” for the each of the organizations impacted by the reorganization.  According to this the data in Table 1, the total administrative cost savings represented by the Dean’s Office budgets amounted to only $121,370.  That leaves some $1.7 million in savings unaccounted for in the Dean’s Office budgets.

 

However, even this amount ($121,370) of savings is misleading for several reasons.  First the proportion of the deans time (FTE) assigned to administrative responsibility of the colleges has been significantly reduced from 2002-03 to 2004-05.  In FY 2003, the deans of colleges were almost all assigned full-time responsibility for being dean (FTE = 1).  In 2005,  deans were assigned significantly less time to the Dean’s Office as shown in Table 2.  For example, the College of Business dean was assigned 1 FTE in 2002-03 to the dean’s office, but only .21 (about one-fifth) to this same administrative responsibility in FY 2005.  The other deans ranged from .32 to .38 FTE in the dean’s office. The remaining portion of  time was assigned to the departments in which the deans held tenure.  The effect of this reassignment is to significantly reduce reported administrative cost and to raise the reported instructional cost.  Unless these new FTE loadings actually represent a shifting of their time to new duties in their respective departments, it would be more appropriate to use an FTE of one to represent the true cost of administration in the Colleges.  This cost estimate is provided in Table 2.

 

A second misleading part of this information is the shifting of fund raiser positions out of the deans office to Development .  In the College of the Arts and in the College of Business, development officers were listed as part of the budget in FY 2003.  In FY 2005,  these positions were listed in the development office budgets, an apparent “savings” when examining college budget changes. Table 3 shows that the salary costs of these two individuals amounted to $102,800.  To that is added an estimated fringe cost of 25%, bringing a total of $128,500 that should be added back to the current cost for a fairer estimate of savings.

 

 

            After adjusting for the underreporting of dean’s FTE and for the shifting of development officers out of the dean’s office, the apparent “savings” in Dean’s Office budgets is actually an increase of $470,722 as noted below:

 

                                    Reported Savings from Table 1                 +$121,370

                        Less:

Dean FTE Adjustment (Table 2)                        -$463,592  Development Officer (Table 3)                        -$128,500

Recalculated “Savings”                                    -$470,722

 

These facts as reported is the USM “budget books” raise serious questions about the claim of $1.8 million from reorganization.

 

II

 

Retirements, Resignations and Reassignments

 

Are we to believe that the “savings” are a combination of reductions in actual expenses from resignations, retirements and a reallocations from administrative to instructional costs of former administrators?  First, let us exam the reallocations of administrative costs to instructional costs.

 

1.                  Reallocations.  Of the 10 former administrators impacted by the reorganization, only four returned to the classroom.  Their combined salaries in FY 2002 were $417,502.  Most returned to the faculty at a reduced nine-month salary, thus the university recovered a total of $54,518 (includes fringe) in actual cost savings and is shown in Table 4.  The remaining salaries were simply reallocated to the instructional budgets and total $373,888 plus estimated fringes or a total of $467,460.

 

2.                  Resignations and Retirements.  There were additional cost savings derived from the resignations or retirements of four other former deans.  These salaries and fringes total $703,419 as shown in Table 5 and represent actual cost savings.  It is important to note however that to the extent some of the duties that these individuals would have performed (teaching, advising, etc.) required the hiring or shifting of responsibilities, the “savings” are overstated.

 

 

We haven't even begun to discuss how many times the reorganization savings (regardless of size) has been spent!

I hope someone can keep track of the simple list, the whos who, of the administration. For example, in arts and letters there was to be just a dean and secretary after the famous reorganization. But look! There is an assoc dean all of a sudden and look at how many secretaries there are. Compare that staff to the one before reorg? And how about the Grad School? It may not "exist" but its staff was entirely replicated. Same with the honors college. In fact, all the reorganization seems to have done is reorganize the names: isnt the total admin staff from the nine colleges equal to or greater than the current admin staff of the present 5 colleges?