In its Dec. 11, 2013, editorial, “U director shows poor leadership,” the Minnesota Daily editorial board alerted the University community and Minnesota taxpayers to the KMSP report “Investigators: U insider” from Nov. 26, 2013. We encourage everyone to watch the video to see for themselves that tuition and tax dollars are certainly being wasted by Facilities Management administration.
Countless co-workers of mine and fellow University staff agree with the Daily’s assessment of “poor leadership” within the ranks of FM’s management, and we believe to label it “poor” is too kind. FM personnel and our customers suffer daily with debilitating decisions made by FM administrators who chronically violate their own three core values of being customer-focused, operating cost-effectively and cultivating a culture of accountability.
We also share the Daily’s concern with the misuse and waste of FM budget dollars. We have informed the the Board of Regents, President Eric Kaler, University Services Vice President Pam Wheelock and Minnesota legislators that FM is rife with extreme administrative bloat; decisions being made based on and justified with fraudulent numbers and reasoning; and endless examples of questionable expenditures while not receiving value back for money being spent. We’ve done this through emails, in-person meetings and Daily letters to the editor (“Open letter to V.P. Wheelock,” Aug. 8, 2012, and “Don’t overlook FM layers and dollars,” April 29, 2013).The Daily editorial highlights two instances from the KMSP report: First, FM’s “food budget” represents a small fraction of gratuitous spending by FM. An example of much more excessive spending was investigated in an earlier KMSP report on the implementation of team cleaning: $156,000 was spent on a needless “training center” — a fake bathroom and office — which FM Associate Vice President Mike Berthelsen said was necessary so as not to disturb students, but this space is located in a non-student, FM-controlled building — with actual bathrooms and offices — off campus. Also, at least $318,000 was spent in costs related to the training space and installing team cleaning.
Second, in the KMSP video, Wheelock finds out 10 people were planning to attend a Las Vegas conference. She states, “That sounds like about 1 percent of our organization in Facilities Management” and apparently concluded that may be too many and cut the number who could go back to seven. The totality of FM employees is more than 1,000, but the only FM personnel who would even be considered to attend such an event is custodial management staff, totaling 50. Wheelock cut the percentage of “eligible” FM folks flying to Las Vegas from 20 percent to 14 percent. Unfortunately, examples of waste and abuse of FM budget dollars are chronic and confounding.
The Daily editorial includes remarks from the report by Wheelock that seemingly connect tuition costs with “custodial cuts” and “cleaning buildings less often.” Between fiscal year 2006 and fiscal year 2012, FM’s budget was reduced 23 percent while tuition was rising. Custodial staff decreased from 477 to 425 by 2011, but only through attrition — no layoffs. Since 2011, custodial staff has been growing continuously every year while undergraduate tuition was not increased this fiscal year. Regarding less cleaning, the only significant change in many years was reducing daily office and laboratory trashing to once and three times per week, respectively, starting in 2009 — again while tuition was rising. Staffing levels and the quantity and quality of custodial work has everything to do with fraudulent, expensive “team cleaning” introduced by duplicitous FM leadership, not tuition rates.
Kaler has set a goal of continuing to save millions in administrative costs for years to come in order to, in part, keep tuition frozen or keep increases to a minimum. We join him in that effort and thank the Daily for bringing attention to this critically important issue.
