The state Board of Regents will hold a special meeting in Ames on Oct. 2 with a single agenda item: the Transparent, Inclusive Efficiency Review (TIER). The meeting is scheduled from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in 230 Scheman at the Iowa State Center. A live audio stream will be available on the board's website.
Board members will hear a presentation from the Deloitte consultants on eight more administrative business cases for possible implementation. A vote on the eight is expected at a yet-unscheduled special board meeting in early November, following a period of feedback on the three campuses.
The eight business cases are:
- Streamline and standardize finance transaction processes
- Streamline the human resources model for transactional services
- Streamline the delivery of commodity technology services (such as user support, help desk, server management) within each university
- Transform the central IT service delivery model
- Simplify the applications portfolio across the three universities, including enterprise resource planning (ERP) platforms
- Make use of innovations to reduce the total cost of ownership (TCO) for technology infrastructure
- Reduce utility and operational costs by limiting use of buildings during evenings and summer
- Reduce energy consumption by investing in energy management initiatives
8+4+5
These eight join four business cases the board approved for implementation at its August and September meetings:
- Use strategic sourcing to negotiate better contracts for targeted spend categories
- Establish clear policies for P&S position search committee size and structure
- Create a common admissions application portal for prospective students
- Standardize the "manual" calculation for the Regent Admission Index when all four performance factors aren't available
Together, they cover 12 of the 17 business cases identified by the Deloitte team in June for further study. The remaining five focus on issues identified early on related to academic programs. The team first focused on administrative processes and policies; an assessment of academic programs and how they're delivered began last month with the beginning of the academic year.
