Thanks, but No Thanks

_{[For more information on House Bill 1692, please read "USNH Opposes Restructuring Intents of House Bill 1692"]}

 Last year, appropriations for the University System of New Hampshire were cut 48 percent, or $48 million, by the state, putting appropriations for the system's four institutions at a record low not seen since 1988. In response to this severe loss of funding, the USNH Board of Trustees was faced with the difficult task of adjusting the budgets of the four institutions to be able to stay afloat for the academic year. Though the situation was less than desirable, the Board shone when they proved able to reconcile with such a drastic loss of state support. Plymouth State University was able to make cuts without letting go of any of their full-time staff members, though students did suffer an increase in tuition. Still, the Board performed admirably in a challenging time.

Now, the state wants to partially right the wrongs it did in handing the University System such a fiscally devastating blow by passing a bill that its sponsors think will save the institutions millions of dollars a year.

House Bill 1692, if passed, will make severe changes to the way that the University System is structured, including eliminating the office of the Chancellor, shifting duties, and reducing the student presence on the Board.

Currently, the Board has a policy of reserving two seats for student trustees. One student represents each institution, totaling four student trustees, that serve on a rotating basis of every two years. The position of student trustee is a very important one, for it is the only truly student voice that has any direct input to the financial matters of the University System, including matters involving tuition.

House Bill 1692 plans to drastically reduce the student presence on the Board by 50 percent. Instead of two student trustees serving each year, only one will serve on the board annually, thereby condensing each student trustee's two-year term to a one-year term.

The bill also proposes to make cuts within the system office, thereby reducing the amount of employees that the University System has to pay, right? Wrong.

You see, the University System is a very delicately structured machine whose operations and missions hinge on a central concept: economies of scale. The genesis of the University System came out of a need and desire for stronger collaboration between the four New Hampshire state institutions, while also allowing the four schools to maintain a sense of independence and identity. Today, all four institutions have a great degree of individual autonomy, but benefit in many ways as a collective unit.

Working together as a system, we at Plymouth State University are able to enjoy many of the benefits and services that are shared between the other three sister schools, such as Moodle, Sodexo, IT services, etc. We are also able to share employees, in a sense. For example, rather than each school having an attorney that specializes in higher education on staff at all times, the University System has one attorney on retainer that works for all four institutions.

Of course, there are certain jobs and services that need to be fulfilled at each school individually, and there are those that can be covered across the system by a few people. It seems that the University System has this all figured out. So, although the sponsors of House Bill 1692 do have essentially good intentions, they are not as well- versed in the matters of the system office and the tasks of each position as, well, those that work for the University System.

Those that do work for the University System have actually assessed the effects of the bill's projected cuts, and in many cases, they lead to costs. Some of these costs come in the form of new hires that would have to take place to reconcile for the cuts made. In some cases, we might be forced to cut one person at the system level, and then to hire four more people at the individual institution level. Some of these costs will be in the form of the recruiting, interviewing, and training processes that will ensue after the proposed cuts.

In the meantime, the Board of Trustees has been working diligently to streamline the system office even more, creating the effects that the bill has ambitions to but falls short of, and, as they've shown us in the past (most notably last year), they are impressively skilled in making the system work as nimbly as it can.

That being said, to the sponsors of House Bill 1692, we appreciate your concern for the financial wellbeing of our institutions. We appreciate your intentions, and we appreciate your efforts. But, when you propose a bill that tries to stifle the student voice, to make unnecessary and in some cases perilous cuts, and to fix something that, quite frankly, ain't all that broke, we'll have to say thanks, but no thanks.

~The Clock Staff