FROM: Interim President Joseph S. Wood
Newsletter #9: A Focus on the Short Term
November 8, 2007
Dear Colleagues:
In this issue of “Moving Forward,” I want to review the Trustees' meeting, held Sunday though Monday, November 4-5, in Augusta, and underscore the need to bring focus and vigor to our work of capturing immediate savings through short-term strategies.
This will be very difficult work. There's just no way around that. Yet capturing immediate savings is an essential step which will help give us the flexibility we need to focus all resources on our core mission: highly engaged learning that transforms lives and communities.
Discussions on various reorganization scenarios are under way. It's important that those discussions continue and that the people involved get back to me with their thoughts and recommendations. Over the long term, reorganizations will allow us to cut administrative overhead and invest in retention, recruitment, and integrated marketing, all to enhance the educational experience and foster student success.
BUT it's equally, if not more, important that we push on the short-term strategies to capture savings in the current fiscal year. Please click on http://www.usm.maine.edu/mcr/update/0708/plan.html to review a copy of my preliminary progress report, which I presented to Trustees on Sunday afternoon.
You'll see under "Expenditure Reduction" that the plan calls for a $2 million decrease in our operating budget by June 30 of 2008. The only way to make that target is to focus our time and energies on the immediate cost-saving measures listed at the bottom of page 1, among them the freeze on hiring, equipment purchases and discretionary travel.
I'll be using our University Council meetings for more frequent updates on progress toward meeting these necessary goals, and will report back to you.
On a related issue, you probably read or heard about news stories on portions of the Trustees' meeting. I think it would be helpful if I provided additional background and context on two of those stories.
The story "Trustees to weigh $3.6 million USM request" appeared in the Saturday, November 3 edition of the Portland Press Herald. (http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story_pf.php?id=144935&ac=PHnws)
On Monday, November 5, the Press Herald ran the story, "Trustees demand quarterly reports." (http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story_pf.php?id=145587&ac=PHnws)
It's important to note that the Trustees' Audit & Finance and Facilities Committees met in joint session Sunday afternoon. Trustees have been discussing for some time the need for more frequent financial analyses of the entire System. I think this is a good move for the System. The purpose of the meeting was to: receive the annual financial report from KPMG; review the year-end financial analysis of budget vs. actual results (see http://www.maine.edu/pdf/fy07actvsbudresults.pdf); and to hear my brief report on our plan to achieve financial sustainability.
Trustees accepted those reports and commented briefly but are NOT scheduled to take action or implement recommendations until their next meeting, scheduled for January 13-14 at the University of Maine. I will make a more detailed USM budget presentation at that January meeting.
Sincerely,
Joe
For more information, please click on http://www.usm.maine.edu/mcr/update This site includes the breakfast speech; the latest digest of ideas e-mailed to movingforward@usm.maine.edu; our work plan; and notes from the recent series of town meetings.
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