Comments on Budget Proposal: Information and Telecommunications

The Educause data (page 3 of the PDF) is data I haven't seen before. However, it also jives real well with my own experiences with our relative resources with peer institutions. We've been doing 'more for less' for quite some time, and these numbers show that very well. The next page shows budget data (lines 76-79), where our peer institutions direct (non-recharge) budget is 79% of total budget, and WWU's is 85%. This shows that WWU students pay a smaller direct share of the overall technology costs than our peers, something that probably makes WWU attractive to students.

All this means that we're already running a very efficient operation here at WWU. Perhaps our budget growth levels never recovered from the 2001 recession; I don't know, I wasn't here. Any cuts we make are going to disrupt the already careful balance we have.

It appears that the 10% reduction proposal is being expanded from what was presented originally.  In the proposal it shows Telecommunications losing 1 FTE but I know that Telecommunications is now losing 2.3 FTE.  This appears to be more along the lines of a 20% reduction to this area.

Were the original numbers incorrect or are some IT areas being cut further to fund the new "security officer" position?

Why are the actual numbers/layoffs so different than the proposals that were presented on March 18th & 19th?

You are correct that the actual numbers of reductions in Telecommunications is higher than the original 10% proposal presented during the budget presentation. However, it is not due to an expansion of budget reduction caused by the State's reduced funding. Regrettably the budget had to be reduced further in Telecommunications due to a revenue shortfall from the decision of Residential Life to not fund telephones in the student rooms. Their reasoning was that most students come to college with a cell phone and that the in-room telephone service was not used and no longer necessary. This created a 230 thousand dollar shortfall in revenue for Telecommunications. While not having to maintain those lines did allow us to reduce some fixed costs (maintenance for a small portion of our telephone switch gear, a very modest reduction in 'trunk lines', etc.) the reality is that much of the non-personnel costs cannot be reduced and still maintain adequate telephone service to the rest of the campus. It is also important to know that while state funds have been allocated for the telephones, the growth of the data network has not. The result is that the income from telephones supports both telephone costs and network costs.

A long winded answer to say that because of the revenue reduction from the loss of income from student residential telephones, we had to make further reductions in our staffing to balance the departmental budget.

At this time no ITS areas are being reduced to fund a future security officer position. At the request of the Board of Trustee's Audit Committee, an IT security audit will be performed this summer and fall. The results of that audit may, or may not, indicate Western's need for a security officer. Data security is everyone's responsibility!

I am very cognizant of the impact it has on the lives of the people affected and the impact it will have on our ability to provide service to the institution. I regret very much that these additional reductions had to be made.