The Big Money Mess

"It's just so bloody complicated."

That was Baird Professor of History Mark A. Kishlansky's description of the "billions of dollars flowing back and forth and around" the University and its schools. Kishlansky's frustration with the system is not unfounded. In an attempt to figure out how and where all this money is spent, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) Committee on Resources, of which Baird is a member, presented a report last week that suggested the central administration incorporate more Faculty input into University decision-making. Specifically, the committee recommended that President Neil L. Rudenstine create a formal mechanism, such as a committee of faculty members from FAS and other schools, to advise central administration spending. The proposal is more than reasonable, and Rudenstine should act on it immediately.

The FAS committee on resources has presented a powerful indictment of the central administration's excessively complicated and overly bureaucratic financial system. Even though FAS is the largest of the University's schools, many Faculty members know little more about University spending than the size of the endowment. Project ADAPT, a $112 million project that was supposed to make the system more transparent by centralizing each school's financial information, has become a headache for both faculty and administrators. Ironically, many of its major design flaws arose because of a lack of communication between developers in the center and its primary users, like FAS members.

Such a rift between Faculty members and central administration bodes ill for the institution as a whole. If the University is considering allocating large sums of money, for example, to relocate a graduate school to Allston, develop distance learning initiatives or create a multi-million dollar computer system to centralize finances, faculty members should be, at the very least, consulted, if not actively involved in the decision-making process. Instead, the FAS committee's report noted, "Major decisions involving the commitment of substantial resources...are sometimes first discovered by faculty from the local press." Some FAS members have even suggested that the Faculty has not received proper returns from funds deposited in central administration accounts.

A Faculty advisory committee on University spending would do much to dispel such suspicions. While it might seem like only adding another bureaucratic arm to the entire process, such a committee would undoubtedly lead to a greater sense of trust between the two groups, and perhaps a fairer, wiser and more efficient distribution of resources. Faculty members may not be experts on the University's finances, but they, along with students, are primary recipients of large-scale spending. This allows them to evaluate University proposals from a practical perspective.

In addition, Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67 and President Rudenstine would do well to follow consider another recommendation by the FAS committee--issue an annual financial report to the faculty. Such a report, previously the responsibility of the provost, has not been issued since 1997.

The key for the central administration is not to view these proposals as a sinister attempt by the faculties to wrest control of University expenditures, but as a reasonable effort to understand what has become an incomprehensible spending system. Rudenstine has said he would "consider" the requests of the FAS committee. For the good of the University, he must do much more.