Brainstorming for Cost Saving Opportunities at WWU

Well, being the farthest from a hatemongering finger pointer, I stick to my choice of wording, for if there is a better way to say it I don't see the need to bother. I know where I was comming from, and I have made it clear. My point was made with the intent I backed it up with. Regardless if people want to sink to gutter level understanding of basic word choice. The PC crowd has to do some leg work before getting touchy, and it would be nice if just stopped looking for reasons to use outdated lables. I won't be a straw man here though. People need to step back and realize the message over the messenger. That's part of being both an adult and a college student. I shouldn't have to dumb down my vocabulary to suit hate mongering politically correctness lawyers. If you guys want to post a "flame war" feel free, but I won't be crucified as an insensitive jerk just because other people feel they need to reinterpret my words for me to suite their own hate filled view of the world.

There is a reason I always choose "Other" when I fill out forms asking for race. They don't give "Human", and I don't recognize "White, African America, Asian, or Hispanic" as legitimate labels for people who are all human. If others want to believe in separating us for such reasons that is their choice, but I refuse to humor any further attempts of "telling me what I ment."

I definitely didn't mean to suggest that you're an insensitive jerk, just that language is very powerful and can, as this discussion is proving, have it's own agency well outside of your intended use. When you say that other people feel they need to interpret your words for you, well, that's exactly right. Words work because we agree upon how they are used, and the people that are reading them are at least as much a part of that process as the person writing them. This isn't a flame war, but just a little feedback so that your comments are actually somewhat representative of what you mean.

A apologize for suggesting that you are buying into a history of hate. I think that you probably just wanted to say something about wasting paper, which is a nice thing to be concerned with.

Concern as related to state funded reductions:

As state funded budget reductions continue to escalate Western should take a hard look at whether we should continue the practice of subsidizing campus self-sustaining activities with state funds. While this is a complex far reaching topic, it is clear from the state funded point of view that stopping these subsidies would significantly resolve short falls in some areas and could re-direct state funded reductions. To be fair there are also self-sustaining funds subsidizing state funded activities, but those subsidies do not typically have the legal and appropriateness strings attached to them that state funds have.

This overall concern begs the following questions:

What is the justification for our self-sustaining entities on campus to not be self-supporting?

• The argument to allow state funded subsidies of self-sustaining activities is typically that they directly relate to the academic mission.
• When and how should the current interpretation be challenged?

Are the current state funded subsidies of self-sustaining activities legal and/or appropriate within the guidelines Western operates?

How can our campus decision makers effectively manage the financial viability of many of our self-sustaining entities without all of the self-supporting costs?

• In many cases these subsidies could be categorized as overhead. Without knowing the true overhead costs for any self-sustaining area how can the fee and rates we are all charged be appropriately established and approved?
• How would we not benefit from telling the truth on all costs instead of hiding them in obscure budgets?

When do the impacts to additional revenue generating burdens placed on self-sustaining activities from stopping state funded subsidies justify the subsidies?

Examples of state funded subsidies of self-sustaining activities: (These are not intended to pick on any one department, simply examples of the issue.)

Campus classifies buildings either as state funded (academic) or self-sustaining (auxiliary) buildings. This simple approach allows state funded services within state funded buildings to be provided for self-sustaining activities in those same buildings. The campus has an Administrative Services Fee to cover many “overhead” needs for self-sustaining areas including those housed in state funded building. That said, these fees to not cover overhead costs for building maintenance, custodial, cost of utilities, and building system renewals for those self-sustaining departments housed in state funded buildings. Any off campus facility lease for these spaces would cover these costs. At Western the state pays for these. Western has the tools through Banner and space assignments to know exactly the scope of this subsidy. It is substantial. Examples are:

• The Foundation, which is self-sustaining and isolated from all other Western accounting on Chart 2, is housed in Old Main and does not pay for building maintenance, custodial, and cost of utilities. The state pays these costs.
• The Alumni Association is a self-sustaining entity with separated accounting under Chart 3 and is housed in a state funded facility, the Alumni House. They do not pay for building maintenance, custodial, and cost of utilities. The state pays these costs.
• Many departments are fully self-sustaining and housed in state funded facilities like Parking Services within the Campus Services Building. They do not pay for building maintenance, custodial, and cost of utilities. The state pays these costs.
• Many departments are split funded from both state funds and self-sustaining funds and are housed in state funded buildings such as Athletics and Facilities Management. Their self-sustaining portions do not pay for their share of building maintenance, custodial, and cost of utilities. The state pays these costs.

Some departments are self-sustaining and housed in self-sustaining auxiliary buildings, but yet still partially funded by the state such as the Recycle Center and Publishing Services.

• The state funds over $80,000 per year of the Recycle Center.
• Publishing Services, an over 2 million self-sustaining operation per year, rents their space within the auxiliary self-sustaining owned Commissary Building. That rent, over $120,000 per year, is paid for by the state. Increasing their recharge rates to cover rent would force other state funded and self-sustaining budgets cover these rent costs, but it would clearly place the burdens where they belong.

Most grants coming to Western have a Facilities and Administration percentage attached, typically 8%. To date none of these funds are routed to cover building maintenance, custodial, and cost of utilities when those grant areas are housed in state funded buildings. The state pays these costs.

Additional Concern

The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) reporting the legislature stated in 2003 that the Office of Financial Management should "Restrict institutions from using state general resources to subsidize facility preservation costs that should be paid from non-general fund sources."

• Will this increase audit risks at Western?
• What might the future risk be to funding requests? The above indicates this issue is recognized at the highest state levels.

Hopefully my attachment goes through with the suggestions.

 There is a flat rate for tuition from 10 to 18 credits...it DOES.

Do your research.

Don't believe me?

Go to the WWU page and click on the "pay tuition, housing, & fees" icon, then hover over the "Student Accounts" text on the left and select "Tuition Calculator."  Plug some numbers in and see if you can't get two different prices for tuition alone for 10 and 18 credits respectively.

Some fees will be different [i.e. the renewable energy fee @ $0.70 per credit hour], but tuition is flat over the 10-18 credit range.

I'm not sure how everyone else will feel about this, but I would be willing to take a day of unpaid leave per month if it would help to relieve some budgetary pressure.  If some of us could volunteer to take an unpaid leave, or furlough day, and still

keep our benefits, it would equal a large savings in payroll and could possibly eliminate the need for cut backs and/or layoffs.  Most of us working full time could still meet our financial obligations and, hopefully, part time employees would be  in a less precarious position.      

Could you swing it? 

Couldn’t we solve a significant amount of the shortfall by implementing a 2-year program that reduced all salaries on campus? I think it should be a progressive structure based on a percentage of annual salary, people at top of the pay scale can afford a bigger reduction than those at the bottom. 

For example, at $32,000 5% would reduce a paycheck by $67. (It might be a little less since taxes would be less.) I would be happy to do that to protect student access and to prevent someone from losing their job.) If at least 200 employees make at least $32,000, that saves $640,000 over two years. 

If someone making $80,000 took a 10% reduction, it would reduce their paycheck by $333. (Again that could be less because of reduced tax deductions, before tax deductions like health insurance,etc.). If at least 200 employees earn $80,000, that saves $3,200,000 for the two years.  

This seems too easy. Is there something wrong with my math? The numbers could certainly be adjusted, this is just a quick, rough example.

It would be very important that we have a written agreement that these cuts would definitely be for only two years. If everyone does not agree with this idea, perhaps it could be available for individual departments. After all, we should be allowed to choose how we pay for a problem we did not create.

Also, if management thinks that laying off some people would be less traumatic/demoralizing than reducing pay/hours for everyone, they are not paying attention to what people are saying on campus. I've experienced a down-sizing and I know that the effects of layoffs. They have a huge impact on morale, trust and productivity, to say nothing of loyalty, for years after the fact. Doesn't management realize that survivors suffer from a feeling of guilt and insecurity long after watching people lose their jobs through no fault of their own? Does management really think we care so little for our co-workers?

It will be interesting to see how many high-level jobs are cut. After all, the higher you go on the food chain, the more you save per job.

I agree with you mostly.

Salaries cost a significant amount of money, no doubt.  But I'd hate to see salary reductions as anything but a last resort.  Even though it's easy to find a large amount of money there -- look at the cost of living increases everyone is already giving-up -- but that doesn't necessarily make it the right answer.  If there are effiencies that can be made in other areas (electricity usage, classroom scheduling, how we charge for credits, tele-commuting, etc.), I'd like to see those happen first.  If you could have saved just one job by turning-off lights, that sort of thing, -- how do you explain why you didn't do that to the folks making sacrifices in their personal budget, or worse, losing their ability to support their family?

As for voluntary leave without pay specifically -- that should definately be on the table -- it's a good idea, so long as it remains voluntary.  I don't necessarily follow the us versus them philosophy in terms of lower salaries versus higher ones -- not that that's what you were trying to say -- but anyway, we're all in this boat together.

As for tightening budgets, one area not much discussed here are the subsidies students support each quarter.  It's neither here nor there for WWU's budget, since it's all paid for by the students, but that's not to say it doesn't deserve attention, especially as we consider measures like raising tuition.   I've heard a lot of students and others argue on both sides of this, but anyway, it's worth highlighting.  Green Energy ($-?), WK Rec Center ($80/qtr?), Associated Students tax on textbooks to support non-academic activities (33%?), etc.  To be fair -- I have no idea what these things actually cost students -- I've heard some of the figures thrown around, but if someone knows better, please correct me.

I have never heard of an AS tax on textbooks. The AS does get some revenue from the AS Co-Op Bookstore, but the majority of that revenue goes into supporting the operations of that facility.

To help illustrate the current fees students pay please go to: http://www.wwu.edu/depts/sfs/StudentAccounts/sa_tuitionfees.shtml, this has information on each fee. If you have any more questions, feel free to contact me on my forum thread at http://forum.wwu.edu/node/1966 or email me at AS.President@wwu.edu.

Thanks Erik.  Yeah - I wasn't sure about calling it a 'tax' either -- but anyway, you seem to confirm what I was trying to suggest (however awkwardly), which was the idea that some of the book store's mark-up on text-books exists to support non-academic services run by the AS.

Not trying to make any suggestion about this being a good or bad thing -- just that it's a thing that costs money.

How can students find out more details about what the mark-up actually is, and what AS services that money gets spent on?

I finally found an item that perhaps can be looked at for cost effectiveness.  In general it appears to me the the University does an efficient job on expenditures.

  Recently, I've booked two trips to faculty professional development conferences.  It is required that we go through a travel agency when using university money for this type of expense. In both cases, I found better airfare prices than the travel agent was quoting. In both cases, it cost our program assistant and me several hours of time going back and forth with the travel agency.  I imagine there is a cost to the university for this mandated service both monetary time.  I'm wondering why we can't book our own flights and turn in the receipts like we do for other items such as accommodations. We have a limit on what we can spend so it isn't possible to exceed a certain amount of professioanl development allowance, at least not in our college.

Perhaps an evaluation of the policy implications of the current practice can be done.  Perhaps there is a cost savings to be realized with a policy change.

Thank you.

    I know Western's Outdoor Sculpture Collection is supposed to be a big deal and that aesthetic value is in the eye of the beholder, but how about we auction off some of the less visually appealing sculptures that few students appreciate? I'm sure the revenue from these pieces would help to alleviate Western's budgetary pressures.

It would be easy to comply with the Washington State Board of Accountancy's rules (or other certification rules) for receiving continuing professional education (CPE) credits for training provided on campus.  This is especially relevant due to recent travel restrictions as some staff are required to obtain a certain number of hours of CPE per year.  Human Resources training, computer training, etc. could qualify as CPE if the attendees signed in and out, the training session is at least 50 minutes long, and the participants are provided with a certificate of completion (could use templates in Word.) (This is my understanding of the WSBOA rules.)  This would not solve all of CPA's, etc training needs but seems like low hanging fruit. 

This is one more way we could cut down on paper use. Instead of banning professors from printing a syllabus for each student, end the printing of the campus directories which are found all over campus.  The directory is easily found online for all the staff, and I know if more students were aware that their information was being passed out so easily they would be as upset about it as I am. 

Seems like the directory is printed each year without well knowing the demand for it.

I myself don't use a printed directory -- easier just to use the address book in Outlook.    I would imagine most folks need for the info could be met this way.

If directories were "ordered" each year (and even paid for) by each department, demand could be better estimated.  Seems like it's worth investigating, in any case.  Good idea, masonn2.

Re: your second item: What would you do about the online directory (besides be upset about it :-))?  Would it be feasible to protect it with the universal login/password?  I wonder what how the "need" for the online director is defined, and if there's a better way to meet it.

             
                  Just a reply to the Travel Question on booking Airfare.  You are only required to go through a travel agent if you do not have the WWU Travel Corporate Card.  If you have a Travel Card you can book your own flights directly with any airline or through our Easy Biz Online Booking and get reimbursed with your receipt. We only limit your ability to purchase airfare with a personal card and through a Third party like Travelocity or Expedia.  All the information is on the WWU Travel Website.    

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Looks like reducing the free printing was already suggested

While I was at WSU I observed a few interesting things.  But I can't verify whether or not these methods were actually used.

Why don't we generate badly needed funds through advertising?  Though this is a public state university, and we don't want to cheapen our professional and artsy appearance by catering to commercialism & consumerism, advertising for the right kinds of places might bring in a few extra dollars without hurting anyone.

I noticed at WSU they place advertisments for WSECU and other banks in the bathroom stalls of the well-used public restrooms of their student union building.  Perhaps we could also sell advertising space on our Associated Students display screens located throughout the Viking Union, perhaps for WECU or WaMu or even local businesses like Wood's Coffee or Skylark's Cafe.

I'm not suggesting we set up massive billboards along East College Way (...or am I?), I'm just listing small, mostly harmless ways of bringing in a handful of dollars and supporting perhaps businesses that could use support in these troubled economic times.

I suppose it's too late for this suggestion to have any effect, but the magnitude and cost of the new bike rack project by the Haggard Hall bus stop is mind boggling. 

To begin with, I'm a bicyclist and a rabid advocate for alternative transportation in general. And I plainly see the need for more bike racks on campus.

But I just saw the picture posted on the temporary fence around the construction area, and it's underwhelming to say the least: Semi-covered bike racks like the ones between Miller and Frasier Halls. They're quite nice, but the scope of the construction project is absurdly out of proportion to how nice they are. Plain old-fashioned bike racks that would still be perfectly functional could be purchased and installed in the existing concrete in about an hour for about one one-thousandth the cost of this project. Instead, we have a weeks-long disruptive construction project involving the jackhammering and removal of concrete, digging a pit, and building God-knows-what-else in its place. For the size of this project I almost expected an underground garage with corkscrew ramps, elevators, and air conditioning. (Which would also be a colossal waste, but at least it would be proportionate to the size of the project, and the corkscrew ramps would be fun to ride down.)

One key benefit of alternative transportation is that it's supposed to be cheaper than automobiles. This project looks to me like an effort to ruin the credibility of alternative transportation by giving opponents something to point at and say "See, look how expensive it is to provide bicycle parking!"

I can't believe we're spending this much money on this at a time when people are being laid off. Maybe it's paid for with capital funds that couldn't be used for the operating budget, but it's still a ridiculously wasteful capital project. Or maybe it's paid for with a stimulus grant that couldn't be used for the operating budget, but it's still a ridiculously wasteful stimulus grant. There's just no way to make this project look like a responsible use of money.

I can't believe that people would sugest this anyways... "Well 98% of students don't use their quota, so lets cut their quota... that'll save money!"

Seriously?

Thats like me, a non-smoker, cutting down on the ciggaretts I buy inorder to save money...

When will budget planners start using their heads?

It costs about $30 per month in electricuty to run an average desktop computer if you leave it on 24/7.  I've read this in various forums, experienced this at home...it seems pretty close to the truth.

I know it happens around WWU -- quite a number of folks "lock" their computer (CTRL + ALT + DEL) when they leave the office for meetings, lunch, going home, etc., but do not shut it off.  I wonder if the labs computers are going 24/7 as well.

I'm visiting Microsoft's web page the other day, and they're pushing a power management tool called "Edison".  I never take a marketer or salesperon's word for anything myself, but it did get me to thinking about power management in general, so I opened the control panel on my computer and looked at the power management settings.  As it turns out, my monitor is set to turn-off after 20-minutes of inactivity.  But other than than, my hard-drive never turns-off, and my system never goes into "standby" or "hibernate" mode.  So I know I'm not saving as much energy as I could (with no effort required beyond what it takes to initially change the settings).

Does anyone know about “power management” for our computers at WWU, or otherwise, have any advice in that regard? I’m wondering if this is just left-up to each individual like me, or if perhaps the power management settings could be specified in the "builds" or "ghosts" (or whatever it's called) we order new computers and they come all pre-configured.  Is there an over-arching policy at WWU for how computers are power-managed?  If we're not doing it, should we be thinking about it?

Imagine of the (thousands?) of computers at WWU, we have at least 30 in offices that are left-on 24/7.  At $30 per month for electricity X 30 computers X 12 months, it comes out to nearly $11,000 in electricity to run just those 30 computers.  Alternatively, if we power-managed those 30 computers by setting them to automatically go into standby after 5pm each day, they would only be running for 9-hours per day, 5 days per week.  That's 45 hours per week, versus 168 hours per week if they run 24/7 -- a savings of 123 hours per week, or 73%.  Apply that savings to those 30 computers, and the annual electricity cost is cut to nearly $3000 per year (from $11,000).

For $8,000 in savings...  If we paid a techie to run around to each office on campus and check their power settings, would they find more than just these 30 computers before they burned-up $8000 worth of salary (on-the-clock time)?  What if they found 1000 computers that needed this attention...?

Just a thought.

I'd heard some talk about electronic textbooks -- specifically, using Amazon's "kindle" to replace expensive & heavy textbooks and supplemental print-outs, etc. in the classroom before, but not much more than talk, it seemed.  Someone sent a link to me this morning to an article from the UW about the Kindle pilot program there.  Might not be an immediate cost-saver for us, but worth looking at for the future. 

UW Article:
http://dailyuw.com/2009/7/8/taking-weight-classes/

There is a system that can be added that will allow that called go print http://www.goprint.com/controlling-printing-costs.asp

Install some sort of software that reduces the amount energy computers use when they are idling. --Don't know the specifics but somebody more tech savy than me can look it up.

I recall facebook had this software where it reduce the carbon emission produced by computers...?

~gotta love Western for the open discussions such as this one.