* How can a more diverse student body be supported during a period of flattening or declining federal/or state appropriation?
* How do we attract target students with the capacity to provide competitive tuition subsidization that is competitive with peer institutions?
* Is the University effectively evaluating alternatives to traditional education practices (e.g. three year degrees, a multi-year tuition schedule) to help address student access and affordability issues?
* How robustly is the institution evaluating its academic programs to determine whether to scale-back or discontinue non-strategic and financially under-performing programs?
* Is student access being effectively messaged in the institution’s development activities?
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* Are there new or additional opportunities to identify non-value added or duplicate tasks that are performed within or between departments and central functions?
* Are there shared service or outsourcing opportunities for administrative tasks?
* Are there cost saving opportunities due to high level of decentralization within the institution and level of spending outside the central procurement function?
* Have we performed robust analytics around preferred vendors to identify potential cost reductions?
* Has technology been appropriately leveraged to gain efficiencies within certain processes, such as pre- and post-award administration?
* Has information technology spending been rationalized across the institution?
* Is there effective monitoring in place to ensure that implemented cost reduction measures do not adversely impact internal controls?
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* What is the impact on operations of a research funding scenario at 2007/2008 levels?
* Do we have the qualified staff in key Research Funding & Administrative positions that not only understand and enforce various requirements, but can also identify new opportunities for funding? How responsive is our Research Funding & Administration group to changing rules, regulations and requirements?
* Are we strategically recruiting faculty who are considered attractive candidates for sponsored award funding?
* Are we taking advantage of collaboration opportunities across disciplines and with other institutions?
* Do we have effective research conflict of interest policies for faculty and the institution?
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* How does the institution address significant post-retirement and healthcare cost increases given recent budgetary reductions that have impacted employee salaries, government funding pressures, and projected revenue and expenses?
* Are post-retirement pension and healthcare liabilities adequately funded?
* What is the plan to fund these liabilities if they are currently underfunded? Are these accurately reflected in the financial statements?
* Are the accounting obligations related to post-retirement and healthcare benefits effectively calculated, scrutinized and periodically monitored?
* What is the Accumulated Post Retirement Medical Benefit Obligation projected to be in ten, fifteen, and twenty years?
* What is the impact of projected post-retirement benefit costs on sponsored research fringe benefit rates?
Full set of slides is available at http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/regents/regmeet/mar11/a5.pdf
So many questions! Maybe it's better not to ask:
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