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UNC leader orders cut of top-heavy university administrations

By Eric Ferreri

McClatchy Tribune Wire Service

Published: August 31, 2009

UNC system President Erskine Bowles has rebuked the leaders of the 17 campuses for their top-heavy administrations and put them on notice: Make significant cuts. Now.

In an Aug. 17 e-mail to the chancellors of the UNC system's campuses, Bowles characterized a (Raleigh) News & Observer report on the steady growth in administrative positions across the UNC system as "an absolute embarrassment."

Campuses are putting together plans to cut spending 10 percent, and administrative costs must be a prime target, Bowles warned in the e-mail. Four times, Bowles wrote words entirely in capital letters for emphasis.

"The coverage in today's News & Observer on administrative growth within the university is an absolute embarrassment -- and we brought it all on ourselves," Bowles wrote. "In the conversations that we will be having with you regarding your 10 percent budget reduction plans, we will be looking for absolute PROOF that you have focused FIRST on administrative reductions and solid evidence that you have taken steps to shore up our academic core."

Campus budget reduction plans will not be approved by Bowles' office or the UNC system's Board of Governors unless administrative costs are pared much as possible, the e-mail stressed.

The president's frustration was clear in the e-mail, but he declined to discuss it with a reporter. He will talk about the issue face-to-face with chancellors Monday in a regular meeting.

Bowles' e-mail was sent the same day the N&O reported that administrative ranks across the UNC system had swelled by 28 percent over five years, from 1,269 administrative jobs to 1,623 last year. That increase in administrators outpaced the growth of faculty and other teaching positions, which was 24 percent, as well as student enrollment, which climbed 14 percent.

And administrative growth came even as Bowles was warning against it. In his e-mail, Bowles notes that he has urged campuses for nearly four years to reduce administrative costs.

Bowles made efficiency and accountability mantras upon taking office in January 2006. But the university system he presides over is a far-flung and decentralized enterprise that has, in recent years, given campus leaders more decision-making power. Much campus hiring requires no UNC system approval.

Hannah Gage, chairwoman of the UNC system's Board of Governors, said the growth was likely the result of that flexibility given to campuses to manage their own affairs in an era of prosperity.

"As the system has grown and more autonomy has been given to the campuses, there has been an assumption that the judgment of the campuses will reflect the philosophy of the university system," she said. "The campus oversight was not strong enough."

Bowles and Gage have both spoken of the rising administrative costs and other issues eroding the trust of taxpayers and legislators.

It's on the radar

State Rep. Ray Rapp, an education budget writer, said the UNC system's management costs and spending on hundreds of academic centers and institutes have expanded too much. The UNC system took a $171 million cut to its budget in the current year, and next year will likely have to cut another $246 million, Rapp said.

"Some programs have grown like unchecked, without adequate supervision," said Rapp, a Democrat from Mars Hill. "It is on our radar, and I think it's fair to say it's on Erskine Bowles' radar as well."

James Woodward, N.C. State University's interim chancellor, said Friday administrative costs have risen steadily across higher education. He said he supports Bowles' desire to make dramatic changes.

"We have a tendency to over-fix a problem," said Woodward, who previously spent 16 years as chancellor at UNC-Charlotte before retiring from that job in 2005. "If we make a mistake someplace, we'll change a process and add an administrative task. And we do that without adequately judging the cost versus the benefit."

At East Carolina University, Chancellor Steve Ballard sent a long e-mail Aug. 18 to members of his governing board after the newspaper report was published, saying executive and administrative positions had decreased 35 percent since he began the job in 2004. Last year's budget cuts, he said, focused almost entirely on administrative spending, leaving just a 2 percent reduction to academics.

At UNC-Chapel Hill, Chancellor Holden Thorp said the newspaper report didn't account for cuts made after 2008. Since July 1 of last year, seven associate or assistant vice chancellor positions have been eliminated, Thorp wrote in an e-mail.

It was a consultant's analysis of Thorp's campus that brought much of this administrative growth to light. The consultant, Bain & Company, concluded recently that work flow often bogs down at UNC-CH because there are too many supervisory layers.

"We commissioned the Bain report because we wanted to see if that was the case," said Robert Winston, chairman of the UNC-CH Board of Trustees. "We've done the study. Now we have to get better and more efficient. This is not just about cutting money and titles. This is about creating a better-managed university."