Biddy Martin’s actions to hire a firm for what is estimated to be $3 million dollars is not the wise way of figuring out how to save money.

To start out, hiring a consulting firm – an unsteady one, like Huron, at that – sends a message that our university administration does not know what they are doing. This is not the time to send this kind of message, when our state’s government is trying to figure out how to fix the budget – Gov. Scott Walker is expected to announce his proposed 2011-13 budget on February 22.

Hiring this outside firm is not a good way to convince the state that this university is doing all it can to become “a lean, mean, educating machine.” The university administration should be hiring someone internally. Instead, they seem to think that hiring an outside firm will result in an objective opinion and that the faculty will be more okay with taking criticism from an outside source than from someone within. I disagree.

It would be best to allocate someone already within the administration to this task. That someone should know how this university has been operating. Rather than hiring someone to realize the mess and point out the flaws, we need someone that is already aware and can propose ways of finding solutions to benefit the University of Wisconsin community as a whole. Why not, for instance, create an office which could continually prepare reports on sustainability?

I acknowledge that universities like UC-Berkeley and Cornell report to have saved nearly $100 million annually as a result of outside consulting firms coming in and offering their so-called objective expertise. But the details of how exactly this was accomplished aren’t quite clear.

The request sent out last August mentioned areas of review in everything from Financial Management to Energy Conservation to Human Resources. This opens the door wide for anything. To me, it seems it could mean multiple jobs, funding and resources could get cut. How is Huron to say what is and isn’t necessary for UW?

According to Darrell Bazzell, UW’s vice chancellor for administration, the “decision to go with Huron was really based upon … experience working with them [in the past].” I do not think that our decision to hire a firm should be based on familiarity. Moreover, considering Huron’s dubious record, I really do not see how they are fit for rehire.

Not only has the firm done little for this campus in the past, but according to The Chicago Tribune, Huron was misrepresenting its finances by falsely reporting internal profits. As a result, the company was forced to cut its profits almost in half, from $120 million to $63 million. Due to the controversy, Chief Executive Gary Holdren, Chief Financial Officer Gary Burge and Chief Accounting Officer Wayne Lipski resigned.

Good news is that it’s not too late. The university has not yet signed a deal with Huron. It will likely take a few weeks to finalize a contract, which Biddy Martin will ultimately have to sign off on.

Biddy Martin, if you’re reading this, don’t do it.

Victoria Yakovleva ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in chemical engineering.