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WHAT’S IN A NAME? Take a look inside the lives of a few employees who share the same name at Duke, like two of the 10 Kim Johnsons.
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COMPUTER REPAIR Did you know Duke Computer Repair will fix personal computers purchased through Duke Stores as well as your work computer?
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SUSTAINABLE DUKE As dry conditions return, Duke continues to focus on innovative ways to conserve water as part of its sustainability efforts.
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Cutting $100 Million A look inside the DART process
DUKE ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM TEAM WORKING BEHIND SCENES TO CUT BUDGET, MAINTAIN MISSION “We acknowledged at the he change represents more beginning that we needed a of a cultural shift for Trinity thoughtful and strategic process,” College of Arts & Sciences You want to Trask said. ”We didn’t want to than a financial one. start with the do what some other institutions Last year, a business manager areas that represent high were doing in bringing in and four support staff in different someone from the outside to Trinity departments within the payoff and low complexity begin cutting.” Friedl Building accepted early and work your way down retirement. Soon after, members A different to areas of lower payoff of the Duke Administrative approach Reform Team, known as DART, and greater complexity.” met with Trinity leaders to discuss In the first few months of — Tim Walsh how schools could balance 2009, universities such as Assistant vice president and budgets during the severe Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Cornell controller for Duke economic downturn. and Dartmouth announced deep Tim Walsh and colleagues are analyzing reams of financial data. The result for Trinity was the cuts to programs and jobs. Duke birth of a business service center took a different approach. model: four existing support staff members and a new business manager “The best way to address the budget issue is not to begin hacking away will provide shared services for payroll, event planning, account without knowing fully the impact of the changes so that you look back and reconciliations, and budget preparations to multiple Trinity departments – regret making certain changes or don’t fully realize the savings you all under the same roof on East Campus. expected,” said DART member Warren Grill, professor of Biomedical “We took the opportunity to rethink how we do business,” said Sandy Engineering and chair of the University Priorities Committee. Connolly, Trinity’s senior associate dean for finance and administration. “We DART began by assembling an analysis team that compiled and began by asking what are the business functions that are common across all assessed financial data to help identify savings opportunities and inform departments versus what functions are truly unique within a department.” their decisions. Trinity will have fewer people, “but we will gain efficiencies, especially Tim Walsh, assistant vice president and controller for Duke, led the with smaller departments that didn’t have much capacity or back up,” analysis team, which conducted more than 200 interviews to generate and Connolly added. deliver potential savings opportunities and supporting data to the DART This pooling of resources across departments highlights one way group and leaders in the schools and departments throughout Duke. DART is working behind the scenes as part of an intensive effort to analyze A bulging six-inch thick binder on his desk contains presentations ways to cut $100 million from the operating budget without affecting the made to DART during the first year. Based on the analysis for each university’s core academic mission. presentation, he estimated the reports supporting the presentations would Since forming in February 2009, DART has directed efforts that have likely stand 30 to 50 feet tall if printed. led to $60 million in projected savings – more than half of what is needed Walsh used a simple formula for determining the best opportunities by 2012. Efforts include two early retirement incentives, tighter restrictions to pursue. on overtime and travel, computer purchasing standards and regulation of “You want to start with the areas that represent high payoff and low building temperatures. complexity and work your way down to areas of lower payoff and greater The DART group, co-chaired by Provost Peter Lange and Executive complexity,” he said. Vice President Tallman Trask III, includes 16 people, a cross-section of deans, faculty and administrators who provide broad perspective and input. >> See CUTTING $100 MILLION, PAGE 5
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