A group fighting looming cuts at the University of Otago is calling for an independent review of the institution’s financial management since 2015.
The Protect Otago Action Group (POAG) sent an open letter to members of the university council ahead of tomorrow’s scheduled meeting, calling on them to do more than "rubber stamp" redundancy proposals by the senior leadership team (SLT) it says will fail to steer the university beyond its current difficulties.
Several recommendations were put forward, including joining forces to tackle the mutually-agreed issue of government underfunding, and investigating university spending in recent years.
"In view of obvious examples of poor financial management — such as spending over $40 million on external management consultants and introducing a shared services model that has failed to achieve its goals of more efficient and cost-effective delivery — there needs to be an independent review of the university’s financial management since 2015."
Council members were urged to request a clear account of spending on management consultants since 2015 and make it publicly available.
POAG, a group of staff, students and community members, has been a vocal opponent of impending staff cuts that could lead to several hundred job losses as part of the university’s bid to downsize by $60 million.
The letter said it expressed the views of hundreds of people from all divisions of the university, and had been widely circulated beforehand so "extensive feedback" could be included.
The SLT should form a joint working group with substantial representation from tertiary education unions, the Otago University Students Association (OUSA) and POAG.
The group would develop a more effective strategy to address severe government underfunding and the university’s financial crisis.
Lobbying the Government needed to be a key part of the response.
"We urge senior leadership to take a much more forthright and assertive approach."
Cuts to staff, scholarships, papers, and degrees, were likely to reduce student enrolments in 2024 and 2025, leading to reduced income from students and even greater challenges in achieving an operating surplus.
They would also increase workloads for those who remained, exacerbating rising staff turnover rates.
The $60 million needed to prevent them was not a lot of money relative to overall government expenditure — and lack of expenditure.
In Budget ’23, the Government pulled $355 million of tertiary funding earmarked for this year in the previous year’s Budget to spend the money elsewhere, the letter said.
This reduced the total allocation for tertiary education from $5.3 billion to $4.9 billion.
There was scope for reducing size of the university’s central bureaucracy, the letter said.
Given that last year 18.8% of non-academic staff left the university’s employment, it should be possible to manage this without forced redundancies.
"Our key demands are that the council and the SLT pause the management of change processes currently under way, form a working group with concerned parties as outlined above, and investigate other options for reducing costs."
A university spokeswoman said the university was working with the tertiary education unions, OUSA and Universities New Zealand on the issues it was facing.
The letter from POAG would be considered this week, she said.
