Twitter
Facebook
Reddit
Digg
Tell us what you think!Send a letter to the editor about this or any other article in The Maine Campus.
The chancellor’s Task Force met in the Wells Conference Center Wednesday to discuss how to make the University of Maine System more efficient and reduce costs.
In four years it is estimated that the system will be more than $40 million in the hole if no changes are made. The problem with handing the future of our university system to this group is that the Task Force is done on June 30.
The system is clearly only thinking short-term about a long-term problem.
If the chancellor is thinking big-picture, as we hope he is, this Task Force needs to extend beyond this fiscal year, because we know the budgetary problems will.
This is not a quick fix. To reduce this problem the system is thinking of layoffs, centralization of services, etc. It is unlikely that a group that will work together for the next four months will come up with solutions if it is not held accountable for what it proposes.
Four months is not enough time to create, develop and implement policy, never mind slowly introduce it with careful consideration of those who the policies will affect as it hears input from those people.
This Task Force needs to remain after this fiscal year. It needs to be a stable committee in the system, generating new ideas on system wide efficiency. This problem will not end June 30; so neither should the Task Force’s work.
The above editorial is written by the editorial position board, whose members are Eryk Salvaggio, Mario Moretto, Heather Steeves, Zach Dionne, William P. Davis and Amy Brooks.
Bangor Daily News