Fallin says ‘major reform’ orders will improve education outcomes
Staff Writer kmcnutt@oklahoman.com
Higher education officials must develop a cost-savings plan for consolidating administrative functions across Oklahoma’s public college campuses, under an executive order from Gov. Mary Fallin.
“Administrative costs consolidation will allow for a more effective distribution of resources and educational programs throughout the state to better serve students,” Fallin said Tuesday after issuing the order “to stabilize funding and strengthen public confidence.”
A second executive order targets public school districts that don’t spend enough of their budgets on student instruction, and urges them to voluntarily plan for consolidation or annexation with other districts.
“These two major reform executive orders for education will go a long way to improving our education outcomes and certainly help us be wiser with our resources,” Fallin said. “And I think we owe that to our taxpayers, and we owe it to our students and their parents.”
The higher education order directs the chancellor and the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education to develop a plan for the administrative costs consolidation of universities, colleges, centers and branch campuses by December 2018 and execute it by December 2019.
The regents’ established a Task Force on the Future of Higher Education in March to improve and modernization Oklahoma’s system of 25 public colleges and universities.
Fallin said her order is compatible with those efforts.
Chancellor Glen Johnson said the task force has been working diligently for the past six months to develop recommendations related to the issues of administrative consolidation and cost savings raised in Fallin’s executive order.
“While our state system colleges and universities have already
Connecting marketers to The Oklahoman reader. achieved significant cost savings in the areas of information technology and energy savings, the task force is considering ways to expand administrative cost saving initiatives, including the consolidation of backoffice functions (human resources, accounting, payroll) and the establishment of purchasing consortiums,” Johnson said.
He said the secretary of state contacted him Tuesday afternoon “to advise me that the executive order would be announced during the governor’s press conference.”
Savings achieved
Fallin said her order will allow higher education to focus more on areas that strengthen career pathways and help students stay in school and graduate on time. It also will lead “to significant administrative savings, such as personnel, payroll, purchasing, maintenance, IT and energy efficiency savings.”
“There are some great examples of energy savings that have been done at some of our major colleges,” Fallin said. “OSU has done a tremendous job of reducing their energy costs.”
Energy managers at each of Oklahoma State University’s five branch campuses work with faculty, staff and students to identify and implement ways to reduce utility usage. From July 2007 to June 2016, OSU reports saving more than $35 million in energy costs. The OSU wind farm with OG&E has saved more than 70 percent on electricity, officials said.
Beyond energy savings, the Board of Regents for OSU and the A&M Colleges has overseen costsaving consolidation of administrative functions among OSU, Oklahoma Panhandle State University, Langston University, Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College and Connors State College.
During the board’s October meeting, Chairman Doug Burns, of Norman, noted “all that we have done and we’re continuing to do to find efficiencies and to dispel what I believe to be largely a myth that there’s great waste in higher education.
“I’m quite certain that there was waste in the past, but we’ve been focused on it for so long out of necessity as a result of budget cuts that I believe that it is mostly, if not entirely, gone. And yet I don’t know that the public knows that.”
Burns urged his fellow regents “to be more of an advocate on behalf of higher education and the efficiencies we have achieved and what the needs really are in the future, and what the value of higher education is to the success of our state and of our children.”
“It will be a big focus of this board this year,” he said.