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The University of Maine system office is often accused by faculty and administrators of being too large and has come under fire recently for trying to consolidate Information Technology, administrative and human resources services.
The system office’s largest expenditure is salaries, which account for more than half of the system office’s $16.9 million budget.
Employee benefits cost the system a little more than $4 million a year. In addition to the salaries and benefits the system also budgeted $711,000 for consultants and professional services. Travel, mileage and lodging cost the system about $166,000.
System-wide IT services are the office’s second-largest expenditure, budgeted at nearly $5 million a year, not including salaries. In addition, the system office budgeted nearly $1 million in fiscal year 2009 to pay off ongoing debts related to PeopleSoft. IT makes up $8.4 million, just less than half of the system office’s budget, including salaries, debts and Administrative Services Development and Support.
MaineStreet, also known as PeopleSoft, has drawn controversy among users, including faculty. The Web-based program, which manages everything from class enrollment to financial aid and payroll, quickly ballooned in cost and complexity since its implementation in 2002.
Dianne Hoff, president of the Faculty Senate, expressed her concern for the size of the system office at a question-and-answer forum with the chancellor’s task force in February.
“I really do hope you’ll look at the downsizing of the system office,” Hoff said at the forum. “According to the data that’s out, the cost of the system office is more than the cost of . Machias, Fort Kent, UMPI and Farmington, and in some cases more than almost all of them combined. So I think that that’s not a good use of resources in tough times.”
Faculty Senate approved a resolution in January urging the system office to “dramatically downsize” itself, saying “proposed steps, such as those to centralize services at the system office are unacceptable, fiscally unjustifiable and will be opposed.”
The system office spends $521,000 a year on audits for the entire system, according to Rebecca Wyke, vice chancellor for Finance and Administration. The system office hires an outside auditing firm to look at the financial statements for the seven campuses, as well as directing an internal audit.
Telecommunication, such as cell phones and reimbursement for calls made on personal phones, costs $52,000. According to Miriam White, director of Budget and Financial Analysis, “It’s basically if a person makes a call from their [home phone], maybe they don’t have a cell phone and either they make a call from their home phone or they use their personal cell phone to make university business-type calls, then they would submit a request to be reimbursed for those expenses.”
Gail Garthwait, associate professor for instructional technology and chair of the IT council at UMaine suggested the task force take a look at the cost of MaineStreet.
According to Garthwait, the system approached the seven universities with the intent of converting IT positions to deal exclusively with what she dubbed the “PeopleSoft beast.”
“I think that every person in here who has dealt with PeopleSoft in one way or another is just concerned with the black hole of money, and we urge you that maybe that’s an area to look at,” Garthwait said.
Another system-wide IT office is Academic Technologies and End-User Support, which manages systems for distance education. These services include a closed-circuit television station, which can be accessed only at locations used for distance education, such as high schools, and used for online or correspondence courses. The system IT office also procures and manages site licenses for a variety of software, such as Blackboard.
The system pays $78,000 in membership dues and fees to various organizations, which benefit all system campuses, according to White. One such organization is the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, which the chancellor’s office pays on behalf of all the system.
The system office spends $70,000 on utilities and trash removal, including $45,000 on electricity and $15,000 on liquid propane and natural gas.
