-
1 of 10
-
2 of 10
-
3 of 10
-
4 of 10
-
5 of 10
-
6 of 10
-
7 of 10
-
8 of 10
-
9 of 10
-
10 of 10
In a Q & A with Editor-in-Chief Shannon Morgan, Kustra explains his report to Boise State student body
Archive
Comments
Story
SM: Can you give an example of how what you outlined in your report directly
affects students?
BK: I’m sure our faculty who work with our students can give countless examples [.] some of which are included in that report that show that these duplication efforts, whether it’s in purchasing or human resources, saps the energy of faculty who are in the classroom or staff who are serving students in Student Affairs or where ever they might be. As an organization, Boise State University overall is impacted. [.] Indirectly, there are costs to the university that will come out of somebody’s pocket. A student pays tuition . what about that lawsuit we were forced to settle, there was $100,000 of someone’s tuition revenue, some donor’s contribution to the university that went right out the window. The bottom line is as we struggle every year with what should be the size of the tuition level . it’s all about budget that it’s based on . and that budget is impacted by everything I said in there.
SM: You sounded frustrated, can you explain why that is?
BK: I’m really frustrated. I’ve been frustrated for years over this, and my staff is even more frustrated than I am. We’ve tried to settle some of these differences in opinion and this overlap and duplication by working with the state agency involved. It might work for a few months and then it’s right back to the old practices. The only way to do this is statutorily … to give Boise State University the same rights and responsibilities under state law that the University of Idaho enjoys. The University of Idaho has proven that it can be done responsibly . that their exemption works well for them and it can work well for us as well.
SM: What’s the next step for Boise State from here to accomplish some of the goals you outlined in your report?
BK: The [State Board of Education] president just told me that he’s going to ask the President’s Council to prepare a recommendation to the board. Basically, my recommendations will become the President Council’s recommendations. The board will have to begin discussions with the legislature and the governor’s office. The way it works is the board must seek permission from the governor’s office to recommend things to the legislature. Since these are the governor’s agencies, he’s going to have to take a look at this and understand the difference between state agencies and higher education and move accordingly. We’ll be there every step of the way. I do not intend to give this report today and go back to business as usual. We’re going to stay on this issue. We’re going to work with the legislature; we’re going to work with the governor’s office and with anybody who must listen to get this done eventually. This is a long-term project. [.] It’s definitely something that’s going to take some time.”
SM: Do you know if you have the support of the President from the University of Idaho and other University Presidents?
BK: He’s not here today but he and we have talked about this. [.] He’d be the first to say ‘it works for us why wouldn’t you allow the other Universities to do it.’ [.] In fact, I just talked to the President of the Idaho state. He’s never been in a place where there is so much regulation and so much duplication of regulation and so he is joining me. I haven’t talked to President Thomas of LCSC, they’re smaller and they might have a different situation. The nice thing about this is we’re not forcing anything. You can chose if you want to take part in the new changes in statutes or not. And if you don’t because you like the current relationship you have with these agency’s, that’s fine. Its fine for them . but it certainly isn’t fine for us.
SM: Can you give an example of a state you would like Idaho to mirror?
BK: There are any number of states that have systems that operate more independently of state government. Any state that has its higher education institutions organized in the form of a system will probably have a more integral approach to deal with human resources, civil service systems . for example in Illinois we had a state wide university retirement system that was only for people who worked for universities and that’s obviously because we could address the specific needs and issues of people in higher education that’s the kind of thing we need to move towards here as a system. [.] I’m just suggesting the board create a system and nurture it separate and apart from state government.
SM:How can students help make the changes
you’ve proposed?
BK: If students can contact their state legislator they could have a dramatic impact. [.] When a student writes a short note to a legislature about an issue [.] the letter from a constituent, who in this case happens to be a Boise State student, means a great deal.
—————-
State Board of Education
Boise State University Progress Report
February 2009
For the last five years I have been updating you on the progress my colleagues and I have made in achieving our mission and goal as Idaho’s metropolitan research university. Although we live in uncertain times, we greet each day on the Boise State campus as one of hope and optimism in a brighter future. Yet, as optimistic as my progress report could be, it would belie the fact that we are dealing on a regular basis with the increasingly frustrating challenge of costly and inefficient obstacles to fulfilling our mission and role thanks to the current organizational and statutory relationship between Idaho state government and its state universities.
What I would like to do for just a few minutes is share with you some examples of the unnecessary duplication of effort and cost that not only jeopardizes Boise State’s ability to serve our students in a timely and cost effective fashion, but also adds unnecessary bureaucratic costs to Idaho state government. I can also share with you the perspective of a national higher education leader who told me this week that the regulation of higher education by the 50 states can best be explained as a continuum displaying the least regulation on one end and the heaviest regulation on the other. According to him, Idaho’s universities rank among the most heavily regulated. As regulation abates across the continuum, higher education in other states enjoys a much different relationship with state government, a relationship that recognizes state universities and colleges as a system sufficiently different from traditional state agencies so as to merit a more realistic approach to holding state universities accountable.
After sharing some examples with you, I have a proposal for how the Board can offer a change in state law that would treat all state universities and colleges in the same manner as the University of Idaho is currently treated by Idaho state government. That is what makes the proposal so easy to justify and implement. It would be based on the best practices of other states that treat higher education differently than state agencies and on the very different relationship that the University of Idaho enjoys with state government. As Boise State assumes the responsibilities of a comprehensive, research university, with similar challenges to those faced by the University of Idaho in graduate programming, scientific research grants and community and state service, why should we be encumbered by a level of regulation that the University of Idaho has already shown by exemption is, indeed, the best practice for Idaho higher education.
In one sense, my proposal is in keeping with deregulation efforts across the country in these times of downsizing, rightsizing and reorganization, all designed to get more bang for the taxpayer’s dollar. Yes, it is true that my proposal will eliminate unnecessary duplication of effort costly to state government and higher education, but I would not characterize this proposal as somehow lifting regulation from Boise State. For one thing, I report to you personally on all matters related to university business and through your committee structure, you have ample opportunity to oversee our work and hold us accountable for results. Needless to say, we also have an external audit annually, which once again came through with zero findings.
But perhaps the greatest check on our work is our own interest in finding the most cost effective way to make a purchase, hire an employee, construct a building or handle a lawsuit against the university. We are stewards of appropriated dollars, tuition revenue, donations and grants from federal agencies and foundations. There are a number of internal checks on our work in addition to the audit and your direct supervision. Fundamentally, this is an analysis of an organizational and statutory relationship that worked fine in days of old when Boise Junior College could be easily regulated by a state government a few blocks away. But today that organizational relationship between state government and a very different metropolitan research university with layers of complexity that have surpassed state government agencies’ ability to monitor and regulate results in costly and inefficient behavior both within the university and in state government.
Let me explain. I am certain that we can find some examples of our own internal bureaucracy creating delays and issues for our faculty researchers, but with two different offices of purchasing, human resources, legal issues, can you imagine the difficulty of determining accountability with fingers pointed both ways as to whose responsible for the latest holdup. If the responsibility was entirely within the university as it is at the University of Idaho, believe me, we would zero in on those delays, mistakes and bureaucratic processes that dueling agencies trade back and forth as though it were a tennis match. We would know exactly where to point the finger and whom to hold responsible for delays and mistakes.
The University of Idaho is granted the authority to conduct its own purchasing, to build and maintain its own facilities and to manage its own employees. All this is accomplished under your supervision as the governing board and there is no confusion or hassle created by a second level of supervision and regulation from another state office downtown.
But in the case of Boise State, Idaho State and Lewis Clark State College, we are treated more like the Department of Corrections under state law and board practice than we are like the University of Idaho. I cannot speak for my colleagues at the other four year schools, but it only seems fair to apply the same rule to all state universities and colleges as the University of Idaho currently enjoys. Allow me to provide a few examples where we experience the greatest difficulty.
Risk Management
State law requires that we participate in the state risk management program. In one recent case, Risk Management took the defense of a case against the University and managed it for a year. They worked the case through discovery, depositions of witnesses and all pre-trial motions. Then, two months prior to trial, Risk Management informed us they were dropping our defense of the case. We were left, just shy of trial, scrambling to find new outside counsel and attempting to defend a case on short notice when we were not allowed to manage the entire pretrial process. While we felt we had a valid defense, we were advised to settle. It cost Boise State about $100,000.
In another case, the University was sued and State Risk Management hired outside counsel who filed answers regarding the case with the court without consulting the University, or any of our staff who were involved in the case.
There are other cases where we suffered losses, actual demonstrable losses that the State has deemed “uncovered” or “not-reimbursable” even though they mandate that we must use them to cover our losses. While we pay about $1 million annually to cover the cost of their services, we are also then faced with covering the expenses of a case when it is lost under their management.
When I served as President of Eastern Kentucky University, I reported to a Board that delegated to me the right to hire a firm in Lexington, Kentucky to represent the University. We worked directly with that firm on all lawsuits filed against the University and the State of Kentucky played no role.
Human Resources / Office of Group Insurance
Our staff worked with the Office of Group Insurance in recent months on a task force that was considering adjusting benefits for part-time employees. Throughout this process it became clear that they can change these rules at any time and are trying to do so while trying to meet the needs of all state agencies. Higher education objected to some of their proposals because they simply did not apply to the market forces and personnel issues that are different than the traditional state agency. One practice that shows how little control we have over a process that affects our own employees forbids our HR staff from speaking with providers on behalf of our Boise State employees. Some of our employees have been put in extremely difficult and costly medical situations due to the lack of responsiveness and timeliness from the Office of Group Insurance.
This relationship illustrates once again the need for Idaho higher education to have its own system, one whose policies and practices respects the national higher education marketplace in which we operate and which differs dramatically from state agencies. Furthermore, if our universities and colleges were to come together, under the Board, to manage our own insurance benefits, we would still have the economies of scale to justify a provider and we would be able to contribute to a system that would meet the particular needs of higher education and its employees.
The Division of Public Works
Our relationship with DPW is driven by the requirement that by statute all design and construction activities over a $100,000 must be run by DPW. The university can administer projects up to the $100,000 threshold and, on request, DPW can delegate authority for a project up to $150,000.
Greater autonomy for the university would simplify and improve the procurement of capital projects, which is especially important given our large and increasing volume of construction (we have conducted over $150 million worth of construction in the last five years, only $10 million of which was funding from the state).
If the University had direct authority over our projects, it would be much easier for us to control costs related to project delivery. Oversight from a centralized state office has at times led to compromises in project design or construction execution less optimal from the university’s perspective.
For example, when we built the Student Recreation Center, costs were added to the project that might have been avoided with a more forceful construction oversight and negotiation strategy. The project was delayed by one full year due to settlement issues between the design firm and the contractor under DPW’s management and the cost overrun amounted to $1.4 million.
In a more recent example, final closeout of the stadium suites design-build project is being hindered by differing points of view between the university and DPW as to the appropriate remedies needed to correct noted deficiencies in the project. Under current practice, our university staff is forced to nurture positive relationships with DPW staff, but I cannot overestimate the toll that takes on our staff, hours and hours devoted to unnecessary meetings and discussions all to assure that DPW justifies its current staff levels and continues to play a role in construction that can easily be administered by the University.
State Purchasing
Boise State recently contracted with the Huron Consulting Group; a firm that specializes in assisting universities improve their research capabilities. We asked Huron to conduct a thorough review of our research support infrastructure. As our research grants and expenditures have increased dramatically in recent years, we wanted to ensure that our central administrative functions are serving faculty researchers’ needs appropriately and that staff support can accommodate future growth of our research.
One of the deficiencies listed in the report is that state purchasing requirements have “hindered the ability of researchers to receive key research equipment in a timely manner.” Their recommendation was to “consider working with the State of Idaho to achieve an exception to the State’s purchasing regulations so that research purchases can be allowed to bypass the State’s purchasing office. While the current volume of purchases requiring State involvement is not high, Boise State should start this process now before research grows and state purchasing rules become an even more significant hindrance to conducting research.”
We have processes in place to assure that large purchases are made according to law, including the Board’s own requirements, but having an additional set from the state department of purchasing creates redundancy and inefficiency in the system. While we have to run purchases by the Board’s Executive Director for anything above $250,000 and full Board approval for anything over $500k, we are required to use state purchasing for anything above $75,000. In the area of grant funded research equipment, this adds a layer of bureaucracy to an already monitored process. The potential time delays and added bureaucracy can impact our ability to be responsive to the granting agency, putting us at risk of noncompliance on federal grants.
Just consider this, where in the private sector can you go to find a requirement that you go through the company’s purchasing office to buy a commodity or service and then after completing that process, you are re-routed through another purchasing office for the same purchase? Such a practice would be written up in any business magazine in America as a worst business practice. In Idaho state government, it’s the cost of doing business in higher education.
Conclusion
What I am requesting is that the Board lead an effort to create a system for Idaho higher education that allows the same level of rules and regulations across universities and colleges reporting directly to the Board. I am advised that the Board has the authority to act in this regard immediately according to two different Supreme Court decisions. Yet the state statutes contradict the Court’s findings, so to date the authority of the Board has not been clarified either by asserting the authority of the Board to govern an independent university system or by seeking a change in the law.
The latter approach could be as simple as requesting that the legislature amend the existing exemptions throughout Idaho Code for the University of Idaho by adding the names of those universities or colleges that want equal treatment. Or the Board could propose that the legislature add one new section to the statutes that clarifies the status of each of the four institutions as having equal footing as “independent legal entities under the governance of the Board but not under the control of other departments of state government.”
This action by the Board and the State would serve to make our system of higher education more accountable by eliminating the confusion surrounding the overlap of state agency and university staff functions. It would allow presidents and their staffs to see clearly the line of authority involved in decisions and hold staff accountable for results. Just as importantly, it would allow the Board to hold Presidents and their staffs accountable for direct results without wading through the maze of conflicting responsibilities between state agencies and university staffs.
Boise State stands ready to assist you in any way that will help us achieve this objective. Thank you for the opportunity to present our views on this matter.
SHANNON MORGAN
Editor-in-Chief