University of Wisconsin System administrators are preparing to meet with representatives from the Legislative Audit Bureau after the Bureau released a report that showed the UW System devotes nearly four times as many financial and personnel resources to administration as it formally counts.
System administrators challenged the report, saying UW applies different standards to account for administrative positions.
“We are willing and want to work with the Audit Bureau,” Regent Roger Axtell said. “We just have a different classification. We use national standards used by other universities.”
Axtell said he believes the report’s finding made them sound worse than they were.
“When you classify as other universities do we are used as an example of low administrative costs,” he said. “The national average [for university administrative costs] is about 10 percent. We spend six percent.”
Axtell said the problem lies in defining which faculty and staff members fall under the administrative category, saying the current definitions are vague.
He also said criticism of the recent hiring of dozens more employees in the face of recent budget cuts is “undeserved,” since “the new hires came out of research grants from the federal government.”
“It’s a catch-22. If we want the grants we have to hire. We are not hiring new staff with state tax money.”
Axtell stressed the system’s goal for efficiency, noting that unlike in the past, today’s students pay a large percent of their college tuition, making them the “majority shareholders” of the university.
“We should constantly be searching for new efficiencies,” Axtell said. “In President Reilly’s opening speech at the Regents’ meeting he listed goals for the system and the number one goal he listed was to achieve more efficiency. We’re singing the same tune [as the Audit Bureau].”
The Bureau will formally present its report and testify during a hearing Oct. 6, said Wisconsin State Auditor Janice Mueller. She expects UW System President Kevin Reilly and members of the Board of Regents will testify as well.
“There have been several developments,” Mueller said. “We’ve been asked to speak to the Board of Regents the very next day [after the hearing]. I expect we will have a continuing dialogue.”
Mueller emphasized there are two distinct views of the report, noting, “It’s not accurate to say we came up with new categories. We used existing university categories.”
Mueller is optimistic about the outcome of the hearing.
“I think we’ll have a good, healthy conversation about these issues,” she said. “President Reilly indicated that he would implement the recommendations.”
