The next groups that should have this analysis done are the state government and the metropolitan council.

There are a lot of other areas the "U' has to investigate. With Maturi going to China, the travel expenses for "u' employees are out of sight. Why are employees of an educational institution consistently traveling to conferences and other reasons It is just not a few employees, but it appears almost all employees are incurring travel expenses. Why?

Wow. What a surprise. Unfortunately, they are looking at the wrong criteria. There may be reasons why a particular supervisor has only a few direct reports. What is a more salient question is how many overall administrative staff are employed, what is their workload, the purpose of these administrators,student-administration/clerical ratios and the overall admininstrative cost. None of these appear to be part of this study. Apparently, that study is forthcoming but, of course, since it's being paid for by the U of M, I have confidence it will be a positive assessment.

There needs to be a study, not managed by the U which looks at everything. Frankly I'm not very impressed with comparisons with other universities. The problem is the comfort level most have is not responsive to the need for fundamental changes. The U should be looking at a blank slate. Nothing would be sacred. Then put pieces back together that have a rational reason to exist. Cost/benefit would be key. Lastly how to instill accountability would need to be built into evey program. I have little faith that Kaler is up to the job, therefore until thing change me checkbook is closed, and I'm telling my legislators to do the same, although I can't imagine those two have the intelligence or guts to push for changes. Their moto is stay low, go slow, and get re-elected.

A change in basketball coach is needed too!

Better hire some more consultants before you make any decisions!

The span of control is only one measure that should reviewed. They should look top down at the whole organization and determine how many similar functions could be combined, where they could use shared services, student to Prof/TA ratios, etc. Where they find a lot of redundancy I hope they make the cuts based on performance and not tenure. I am glad to see them start this long process of reinventing the U. It will take years.

Worth noting is that go-along to get-along Kaler did not start with his own administration. That speaks volumes about his leadership. Trust he doesn't want anyone to discover and then scrutinize facts like his employment of a full-time speechwriter or the hundreds of thousands of dollars his administration spends on hiring executive search and other consulting firms. People riding the gravy train don't want anyone looking at what, exactly, is in those boxcars. So the obfuscation continues, with silliness like "direct reports" as a measure of the Big Bloat that is the University in the Kaler Administration as well as the various colleges and departments.

who among us actually thought the 'U' would acknowledge there was bloat??? Instead they said few areas are over staffed. Isn't that why there was/is an audit? The outside firm should have been reporting to the legislature not the 'U'

Just one question: tell us about one academic department wher the U is rated in the top 5 in the country. Or top ten in the world? Answer 0 unless you include wrestling as an academic department, but that's a very big stretch.