Chancellor James Page laid out his plan for a leaner, seven campus system with less administrative overhead at the University of Maine Board of Trustees meeting Monday in Bangor.
The University of Maine System's top leader says the system must streamline operations and cut costs to ensure its long-term financial health.
Chancellor James Page laid out his plan for a leaner, seven campus system with less administrative overhead at the University of Maine Board of Trustees meeting today in Bangor.
The system faces a long-term budget crisis due to declining enrollment, a tuition freeze and years of flat funding from the state.
Governor Paul LePage's new two-year budget actually increases funding for the UMaine system by roughly $20 million. But the boost, while welcome news, still doesn't alter the dire financial picture facing the system and it's seven campuses: a structural deficit, by the year 2020, of $90 million.
"It is time for the system to heed the calls for transformative change coming from any number of internal analysis, blue ribbon commissions and newspaper editorials," said Page.
He noted to trustees that the system runs an office in Bangor plus seven universities, spread over ten campuses each with its own administrative staff.
"We can not afford this amount of administration," he said. "It is too costly. And its complex and redundant structures stifle cooperation and innovation."
The solution, according to Page, is "one university for all Maine. A fully integrated university, with multiple, mission-differentiated campuses."
The UMaine System, Page quickly added, will still have seven separate campuses. Diplomas will still say University of Maine Fort Kent or University of Maine-Orono. Each university will still have its own president. The savings, says Page, will come from administrative trimming and consolidation. Going forward, all seven campuses will be under one administrative structure.
"So, for example, there will be one HR function and enough representation at each campus to serve staff and students," Page said. "System central office administrative services will be incorporated into campus operations, following the closure of the Bangor office later this year."
Starting next year, the system will have one budget, covering all seven locations. Page says administrators will also work with faculty and staff to coordinate and integrate academic and research programs. These changes, he insists, will lead to programs that are better funded, on a year to year basis, and available to all students, regardless of which campus they physically attend
"In all of this restructuring, faculty engagement is critical," said Page.
Ron Mosley, a business and law professor at UMaine-Machias, is president of the university's Associtaion for Faculty. Mosley says all the streamlining will be a tough sell on campuses, like the University of Southern Maine, that have endured recent rounds of painful program cuts.
"The way those cuts have been done have eroded the level of faculty engagement, the level of faculty trust," Mosley said.
Mosley also challenged trustees to do more to boost pay for faculty, even as they look to cut costs.
"When we spend less than 27% of our budget on instruction, that really tells the world what the priorities are within our system," said Mosley.
This spring, trustees will begin working on a unified plan to manage the system's finances. Glen Cummings says he's confident the changes will produce the kind of savings that will solve the system's budget crisis and give it more money to work with in the future. Cummings is president of the University of Maine at Augusta.
"We can drive some of that money into supporting students, into marketing, into enrollment and into retention, which is really what we need," said Cummings.
Both for the improvement of the UMaine system, says Cummings, and for the long-term economic health of the state as a whole.