The University announced yesterday that it has plans to save $90 million through administrative streamlining. President David Skorton and Provost Kent Fuchs also unveiled at a staff “Reimagining Cornell” forum a new set of cost-cutting guidelines that would, among other things, promote University-wide savings at the expense of colleges’ autonomous decision-making.

About 75 staff members attended the presentation in Biotech G10 yesterday, which was the fourth installment in a series of forums aimed at informing the community about strategic planning initiatives. This event was the first that directly addressed the concerns of the University’s administrative staff.

“I know that many other areas of the University have reduced their expenditures based on [administrative] layoffs …” Skorton said. “We will do it in a way that will reduce expenditures that have no effect on personnel actions or in ways that will have an effect on personnel decisions, but in a more focused and direct way.”

Skorton introduced the staff to a newly-created set of guidelines that he plans to consult before making any major changes to the organization of the administration within the University. The five-point guideline emphasized that any modification to Cornell’s structure should be with the aim of “enhancing academic excellence, increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of functions and reducing expenditures.” The guidelines call for cuts across all departments of the University, reductions in administrative operations and the consultation of the most knowledgeable employees in each individual unit before any type of reorganization takes place.

These new guidelines appear to break dramatically from the University’s past philosophy. Whereas in the past, individual colleges and academic concentrations were left to develop their own policies — independent of the greater University — under the new guidelines, any conflict that exists between an individual college and the University as a whole will be decided in favor ofthe University, according to the new guidelines. What this amounts to is a greater centralization of University operations, which can ultimately cut costs.

“There’s a continuum of ways we can deal with this budget situation,” Skorton said, “One end is that everything gets centralized, which we’re going to reject. We’re also going to reject the tendency of universities everywhere [to say] that only I can do it because only I work in this area. … There is an enormous expanse in between where smart, different ways of doing things have to be brought together.”

Fuchs added that they plan to explore a variety of ways to reduce the amount of overlap and increase efficiency in various fields within the University, even if that means incurring some losses now. He used the information technology infrastructure as an example.

Sizing it Up: President David Skorton updates staff members on the University’s financial situation yesterday in the Biotechnology Building.“Another example is in the information technology infrastructure, some areas where it’s wonderful, others where it’s not, can we invest a little bit in some areas to get back savings, …” Fuchs said. “We’ll break it down by unit, the College of Engineering will know how much they need to save.”

Along with Skorton, Fuchs and other consultants continue to look for ways to create additional savings; early projections indicate that they have been quite successful.

According to Fuchs, University administrators believe that they can already account for a $90 million reduction in the $135 million budget deficit, “without affecting the core of the University.” He explained that most of their estimated savings would come from the consolidation of administrative functions and would generally steer clear of personnel cuts, although he conceded that some would have to be made.

Fuchs also looked forward to receiving the reports from the 20 different academic task forces, which were due yesterday, in order to continue to review different suggestions for departmental savings.

After Skorton and Fuchs’ short presentations, Skorton opened the forum up to questions from the audience with a joke.

“Don’t be shy, there’s a million people on the web watching you,” he prodded, referring to the live webstream of the event.

One audience member obliged, asking Skorton and Fuchs whether a unit that had, as an example, a 30-percent reduction in personnel the previous year would be excluded from any further job loss until every unit reached a similar level.

Skorton responded that there will not be an across the board cut in every unit. Rather, they will look at each unit in a situational basis.

“We’re not going to have some arbitrary across the board reduction and give that number to all units, but were going to look hard, very hard at everything we do,” he said.

Another audience member praised the forums and encouraged more of them as the process moves on. She was especially impressed by the amount of information about these initiatives on the website.

Yet, many staff members were still concerned for their job security, wondering whether these forums were the best avenue to provoke substantive suggestions from employees.

“I think there’s definitely a level of concern among staff, I mean I know that they plan to save $90 million, but where will the reductions be for that other $45 million…,” one staff member explained, who wished to remain anonymous, “I am also not sure if this is the best way to reach people, there is a self-selected group who comes [to forums], so how do you reach those people that didn’t come.”

Tommy Bruce, vice president for communications and media relations, noted that although the forums may not be attended by everyone, a substantial number of people have sent in suggestions via the internet.

“The Cornell community has been very pro-active in sending in suggestions and good ideas that continue to refine our approach,” he stated.