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{The Blue Banner}
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Facilities management faces outsourcing due to budget cuts
Kendall Brooks
KSBROOKS@UNCA.eOU
INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER
The North Carolina General Ad
ministration, suffering from nearly
$4 billion in budget cuts, called for
N.C. schools to prepare proposals for
at least 10 percent budget reductions
next July.
“The state has a $19 billion bud
get, and the shortfall right now is, de
pending on who you ask, anywhere
between $3.2 to $3.8 billion, the key
components of that being $1.6 billion
of federal stimulus money and rough
ly $1.3 billion of sales tax increase,”
said John Pierce vice chancellor of
finance for UNC Asheville.
According to Pierce, UNC A faces
a roughly $4 million budget cut next
year and university officials must find
ways to cut spending.
“What we did was allocated that 4
million out across campus to various
vice chancellors and we used some
prioritization,” he said. “We wanted to
strengthen the academic core, affirm
the student education experience and
reaffirm our accreditation.”
Outsourcing allows the university to
cut spending in salaries, fringe benefits
and extra personnel costs, according to
Pierce.
Facilities management consists of
housekeeping, groundskeepers, design
and construction, maintenance, recy
cling and mail service.
“It’s always preferable to find alter
natives through preserving vacancies
and doing that type of thing,” he said.
“But there’s a sense of urgency to try
ing to figure out where we can save
money. What would an outside vendor
provide these services for?”
According to Pierce, the general ad
ministration is still determining what
is needed from facilities management
in relations to the budget.
“Those are possibilities, but no de
cisions have been made. We’re very
early in the process,” he said.
Western Carolina University of
ficials planned last year for possible
future budget reductions, according
to Chuck Wooten, vice chancellor
for administration and finance at
Katie Saylors/assistant photography editor
Vaughn Griffin collecfs trash outside of Karpen Hall. Griffin has been
working with facilities management for 10 years.
WCU.
“We took some actions to go ahead
and put in place some budget reduc
tions that allowed us to address the
budget reductions for the current year,”
he said. “And we still had some addi
tional funds that were not part of the
current reduction that we could pledge
toward any future budget reductions.”
The proactive budget reductions at
WCU allowed their departments to
plan for the 10 percent cut only, since
they already reduced the budget by 5
percent, according to Wooten.
“We want to protect the core, which
is the instructional component of the
university,” he said. “At the same time,
we had to acknowledge that almost 75
to 80 percent of the institutional bud
get is taken up in personnel costs?”
Tuition increases, enrollment growth
funding, state budget and revenues and
political shifts may all play a part in
these budget cuts, according to Pierce.
“There are a lot of variables that
are out there. It’s a real uncertain en
vironment,” he said. “The legislature
will start meeting in January and will
consider all of this throughout the
spring.”
Last year, the university cut adjunct
professor positions due to budget re
ductions but, according to Pierce, these
cuts require more strenuous work.
“This is the deepest cut that we’ve
had to face. We were able to do those
cuts with preserving vacancies, reduc-
ine travel and purchasing supplies in a
better form,” he said.
According to a budget update Chan
cellor Anne Ponder sent in an e-mail
during the summer, the university
plans to keep core values intact despite
budget reductions and possible posi
tion eliminations.
“While we plan conservatively for
the future, we will be faced with some
difficult decisions. Our university re
mains committed to the crucial work
of educating students and respond
ing to the issues facing our world and
community,” she said.
WCU focused its budget cuts across
the entire institution, attempting to
mitigate the impact on students and
employees, according to Wooten.
“We really didn’t highlight any par- ,
ticular area, but rather we charged ev- i
ery division of the institution to look i
at their own areas and to try and de
termine where there were opportuni
ties for savings,” he said. “Not every
body was able to complete their entire
evaluation before we had to respond
to this request, so a lot of this is still
ongoing.”
According to Wooten, budget reduc
tions of this magnitude make it dif
ficult for universities to avoid cutting
personnel positions.
“There’s no way for us to get 5 per
cent or 10 percent reductions without
impacting positions,” he said. “We’ve
been focusing on vacant positions to
try and eliminate the need to displace
any employee that’s currently in a po
sition.”
According to Ponder’s e-mail, the
coming financial issues continue to
present new challenges to the univer
sity and planning will be difficult.
“It will take all of our creativity and
resilience to remain focused on the
reasons we are here,” she said. “Not
only do our students deserve the very
best from us, but our colleagues do as
well.”
Pierce spoke with facilities manage
ment recently to inform them of the
situation and ask them for input.
“There may be something coming
out of that that are alternatives,” he
said. “It would be best if we didn’t
have to do this, but we have to come
up with the budget cuts one way or an
other.”