UC Berkeley officials announced yesterday an unprecedented campuswide assessment effort that requires spending at least $3 million for the campus to achieve a potential annual savings of "tens of millions" of dollars.

Dubbed "Operational Excellence," the endeavor involves a comprehensive analysis of the campus' structure to identify ways to increase efficiency and cut costs.

The campus faces a $150 million budget deficit for the 2009-10 school year, but officials said they hope the effort, led by a 14-member steering committee of students, faculty, staff and alumni who will be advised by recently-hired consulting firm Bain & Company, will identify ways the campus can improve its operating structure.

"This is part of a much broader strategy to try to get Berkeley back on an even keel, and to make sure that we stay a preeminent university, characterized by both access and excellence," said Chancellor Robert Birgeneau in an interview Thursday.

The more than $3 million in costs associated with hiring Bain will be funded by a campus fund for infrastructure, as well as the savings generated as a result of the plan, he said.

Still, despite the prospect of potential savings, some campus community members said the focus should be on easing the burden currently caused by cuts that have already been made.

"How can they be talking about getting money back when at this moment people are being laid off from their work, student tuition has been raised and they're working towards the destruction of public education?" asked Maricruz Manzanarez, a campus senior custodian and organizer of the local chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union.

The decision to hire an external firm to facilitate the evaluation follows similar actions by other top universities. Cornell University also recently hired Bain, and the company completed a diagnostic review of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in July.

Bain spokesperson Cheryl Krauss said Bain has led "dozens of projects" in the last 20 years with both profit and nonprofit universities globally, whose names she could not disclose.

Rather than using the expertise of faculty, staff and students to conduct a campuswide evaluation, Birgeneau and Vice Chancellor Frank Yeary, who are leading the effort, said an external review is necessary, given its scope and the need to elicit "fresh ideas."

Bain has been commissioned to conduct the campus assessment from now until March 2010, during which campus officials said they will seek involvement from hundreds of people on campus. Officials will then decide what recommendations to implement.

Christopher Kutz, steering committee member and chair of the Berkeley Division of the Academic Senate, said he thinks Bain's assessment will not be part of what some believe is the "privatization" of the campus.

"(Bain's) job is only to free up resources for us faculty to use for teaching and research," Kutz said. "It's entirely about helping us keep our values and our mission as a public university."

Charles Schwartz, professor emeritus of physics, said in an e-mail that while he is looking forward to assisting the campus realize budget savings, he remains skeptical of the project.

"When the management (of any private or public concern) brings in an outside consultant firm to 'study' some problem, there is always the question: Will the consultants do what is objectively needed or will they do what those managers want?" he said in the e-mail.

Tags: OPERATIONAL, EXCELLENCE, BAIN & COMPANY