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The president of the University of Michigan plans to go ahead with a controversial cost-cutting program, despite faculty objections. University officials had planned to move 275 staffers from across campus into a single building on the edge of Ann Arbor to save money. Faculty objections have already delayed staff moves beyond April.
Several hundred faculty voted Monday to back a longer delay, but President Mary Sue Coleman made clear on Wednesday her so-called "shared services" plan might be delayed but it cannot be stopped. “The Administrative Services Transformation — our efforts to accomplish routine business functions in a more efficient way — must and will continue,” Coleman said in a statement. “The question for me is not whether the university will mount a shared services program, but how to do so in a way that best meets the needs of the Michigan community.”
The faculty vote on Monday also admonished the administration for spending “tens of millions” on outside consultants. Faculty, in effect, said Michigan faculty and administrators should be experienced enough to run the institution without such paid help.
University officials initially hoped to save $17 million from the plan, but now that figure is down to as little as $2 million in the first year and $5 to $6 million per year in the near term after that. Some of that savings is offset by new costs, including $4 million to fix up the building staff are supposed to be moving to, $1 million a year to lease the building and nearly $12 million for Accenture to work on cost-saving efforts.
