FINANCING  the  UNIVERSITY -- PART 14

by Charles Schwartz, Professor Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley
schwartz@physics.berkeley.edu                                    February 13, 2008

>>This series is available on the internet at   http://ocf.berkeley.edu/~schwrtz


WHERE THE MONEY GOES – Lesson #2 (continued again)

With new data, the enormous excess of administrative bureaucracy throughout the University (wasting $600 million per year) is more accurately targeted. The bloat is detailed on every campus; and the part attributable to the Health Sciences is also identified. This new information should be especially useful in facing the latest budget crisis.


The Newest Data on UC Employment

     A standard division of UC budgets and personnel is into two sectors:
Total University = General Campuses + Health Sciences.  
The Health Sciences comprise the academic Schools of Dentistry, Medicine, Nursing, Optometry, Pharmacy, Public Health and Veterinary Medicine, together with their associated hospitals and clinics.  The latest employment data I have requested and obtained from UCOP selects only the General Campus sector; and comparing this with the data given in the previous paper (Part 13) for the Total University, we have the overall picture shown in Table 1, below.

Table 1. Health Sciences as a Percentage of the Total University – in 2006
Management FTE
 38%
Regular Teaching Faculty FTE
 18%
All Academic Staff FTE
 36%
All Professional and Support Staff FTE
 49%
Total Employment FTE
 44%


Student Enrollment FTE
  7%


Expenditure of Current Funds*
 62%
* Data Source: Campus Financial Schedules (I+R+PS+AS+MC)

     Table 2, below, gives the ten-year span on the major employment categories for the General Campus sector, just like the table for the Total University given in Part 13. (By subtracting this table from that earlier one, one can get the spectrum of data for the Health Sciences sector.)  The main result seen before is true for this sector: Management grows the fastest – more than four times the pace of total employment.

TABLE 2.  Total Employment Numbers at UC:  General Campus Sector
Personnel Classifications
 Oct 1996
 Oct 2006
 % CHANGE




SMG & MSP (Management) [M]
 2,223
4,602
+107% <<<




Academic Staff:


  Academic Administrators [S]
    329
   506

  Regular Teaching Faculty–Ladder Ranks [0] 5,380 6,928 +29%
  Regular Teaching Faculty–Acting Ranks [1]      73      54
  Lecturers [2] 1,077 1,724 +60%
  Other Teaching Faculty [3]    400    462
  Student Assistants [4] 6,684 8,222 +23%
  Research [5] 3,514 5,081 +45%
  Librarian [6]    466    484
  Cooperative Extension [7]    395    332
  University Extension [8]    250    173
  Other Academic Personnel [9]    172    252
Sub-Total Academic Staff 18,742 24,218 +29%




Professional and Support Staff:


  Clerical & Allied Services [B] 15,836 13,718 -13%
  Communications-Arts & Graphics [D] 1,306 1,724 +32%
  Architecture, Engineering & Applied Svc [E]    793    848
  Fiscal, Management & Staff Svc [F] 6,043 10,884 +80%
  Food & Linen Services [C]    725 1,464 +102%
  Health Care & Allied Services [H]    864 1,180 +37%
  Maintenance, Fabrication, & Operations [G] 4,815 5,579 +16%
  Protective Services [J]    583    573
  Sciences, Laboratory & Allied Services [I] 2,540 2,504   -1%
  Student Services [A] 2,227 3,462 +55%
  Other [Z]    202    216
Sub-Total PSS 35,972 42,166 +17%




TOTAL Employment 56,937 70,985 +25%




Student Enrollment 141,522 191,912 +36%

Notes
Numbers above count FTE (Full-Time Equivalent) positions, excluding DOE laboratories and excluding the Health Sciences.
SMG = Senior Management Group
MSP = Management and Senior Professionals
The numbers and letters put in brackets [..] are the CTO/OSC identification codes.


The Excess of Administration

     The previous method used to identify excess administration is this. From the category M employees (SMG+MSP = Management) we remove the Senior Management Group, which showed no overall growth, and also the components F10 and F15 (computer related positions) and also the F30 component (Management Service Officers), which hardly showed any growth.  The result is labeled MSP* and we look at those numbers over the ten year span. We similarly pare down the overall Code F category (Fiscal, Management and Staff Services) to get Code F*.  In addition, we look at the ten-year growth in total employment.  This process gives us the Adjusted Management Data. Tables 3 and 4 show this data for General Campuses and for Health Sciences. Also shown, for reference, is the student enrollment data (also FTE), copied from postings by the UC Budget Office.

     We calculate the excess in each of those administrative lines with the formula
        Excess = (2006 data) – (2006 Total/1996 Total) x (1996 data);
and the annual cost of this excess is estimated as
        COST = $120,000 x Excess MSP* + $68,000 x Excess Code F*.

(For the rationale of this methodology, see Part 13.)


Table 3. UC General Campuses: Adjusted Management Data
Categories FTE@1996 FTE@2006 % Change Excess
MSP* 1,657 3,500 111% 1,429
Code F* 3,427 6,800 98% 2,516
Total Employment 56,937 70,985 25%
Student Enrollment 141,522 191,912 36%
  ANNUAL COST = $ 342 Millions

Table 4. UC Health Sciences: Adjusted Management Data
Categories FTE@1996 FTE@2006 % Change Excess
MSP* 980 2,342 139%    960
Code F* 1,750 4,639 165% 2,172
Total Employment 39,948 56,387 41%
Student Enrollment 12,676 13,456 6%
ANNUAL COST = $ 263 Millions

In Part 13 we calculated a total Cost of $603 million for this excessive administrative bloat. Now we see how this divides between these two major sectors. It is clearly a serious wastage in each sector.  

     In what follows we detail the General Campus portion to individual campuses.
 
Looking at the Individual UC Campuses

     The following tables show the General Campus (GC) data broken down for each individual UC campus.  The format is the same as that used above.

Table 5a. Berkeley (GC) Adjusted Management Data
Categories FTE@1996 FTE@2006 % Change Excess
MSP* 215 652 203% 409
Code F* 643 1,342 109% 615
Total Employment 11,623 13,153 13%
Student Enrollment 27,245 32,347 19%
  COST = $ 91 Millions

Table 5b. Davis (GC) Adjusted Management Data
Categories FTE@1996 FTE@2006 % Change Excess
MSP* 109 295 171% 151
Code F* 267 600 125% 248
Total Employment 7,394 9,769 32%
Student Enrollment 19,762 26,737 35%
  COST = $ 35 Millions

Table 5c. Irvine (GC) Adjusted Management Data
Categories FTE@1996 FTE@2006 % Change Excess
MSP* 132 343 160% 152
Code F* 280 738 164% 332
Total Employment 4,427 6,417 45%
Student Enrollment 15,135 23,276 54%
COST = $ 41 Millions

Table 5d. Los Angeles (GC) Adjusted Management Data
Categories FTE@1996 FTE@2006 % Change Excess
MSP* 389 599 54% 198
Code F* 1,002 1,472 47% 440
Total Employment 11,797 12,192 3%
Student Enrollment 28,088 32,751 17%
  COST = $ 54 Millions

Table 5e. Riverside (GC) Adjusted Management Data
Categories FTE@1996 FTE@2006 % Change Excess
MSP* 85 161 89% 46
Code F* 128 255 99% 82
Total Employment 3,284 4,434 35%
Student Enrollment 8,382 15,445 84%
  COST = $ 11 Millions

Table 5f. San Diego (GC) Adjusted Management Data
Categories FTE@1996 FTE@2006 % Change Excess
MSP* 219 477 118% 157
Code F* 403 896 122% 308
Total Employment 7,413 10,808 46%
Student Enrollment 16,363 24,095 47%
COST = $ 40 Millions

Table 5g. Santa Barbara (GC) Adjusted Management Data
Categories FTE@1996 FTE@2006 % Change Excess
MSP* 103 242 135% 120
Code F* 188 441 135% 219
Total Employment 5,081 5,986 18%
Student Enrollment 17,044 21,505 26%
COST = $ 29 Millions

Table 5h. Santa Cruz (GC) Adjusted Management Data
Categories FTE@1996 FTE@2006 % Change Excess
MSP* 81 151 86% 35
Code F* 178 416 134% 161
Total Employment 3,161 4,533 43%
Student Enrollment 9,503 14,891 57%
  COST = $ 15 Millions

     There is also a similar table for the Office of the President.

Table 6. Office of the President (GC) Adjusted Management Data
Categories FTE@1996 FTE@2006 % Change Excess
MSP* 308 482 56% 91
Code F* 301 502 67% 120
Total Employment 1,531 1,939 27%
  COST = $ 19 Millions


Discussion

     It is clear that the evidence of excessive administrative bureaucracy points at every location in the UC system. Yet, each campus has its own story.

     The Berkeley campus appears to be the worst offender. The cost of that excess administrative bureaucracy is estimated at $91 million per year. That is a huge amount.  For comparison, the recently heralded endowment from the Hewlett Foundation to the Berkeley campus was described as something that would be matched to a total of $220 million; and that will result in an annual cash revenue of around $10 million. The elimination of the bureaucratic waste outlined above would generate nine times that amount of money each year for useful purposes.

     UCLA has the smallest increase in overall employment (3%) and also the smallest increase in student enrollment (17%); yet its administration has increased significantly (about 50%) with a wastage that we estimate costs $54 million per year, second only to Berkeley.

     Riverside shows the largest increase in student enrollment (84%) with a more modest increase in total employment (35%). Still, there is administrative bloat that we estimate costs them $11 million per year.

     Davis, Irvine and San Diego show employment increases that are close to the student enrollment increases. Yet they each show management growth that is several times greater. (These are each campuses with a medical school and teaching hospital; yet we are looking here at only the General Campus data.) The cost of that excessive bureaucracy is around $40 million per year for each of them.

What Should Be Done About This Situation?

     My own abilities and resources are inadequate to say exactly which ones of these many thousands of administrative positions are really necessary and which ones are superfluous.  Nevertheless, the data gathered above does make a powerful prima facie case that such excess exists in large measure.

     This situation is not just bothersome in an abstract sense; the University is now facing a serious budget crisis and this new information is very relevant.

     Who will confront this hugely wasteful situation and do something about it?  The Regents?  The UC President? The Chancellors? The Legislature? …

     I suggest that concerned individuals and groups on each UC campus take this data to their Chancellor and demand an explanation for this apparent bureaucratic bloat.  Perhaps those responsible persons will be able to provide detailed justifications for the enormous ten-year growth in their administrations. (Please don’t be satisfied with answers of bland generality, e.g., This is forced upon us by mission creep, compliance regulations, unfunded mandates, ...)  Ask for specific and quantitative explanations; and if they cannot be found, then appropriate actions are necessary in cleaning up the administrative house before any budget cuts are put upon the core academic programs of the University.