AUGUSTA, Maine — The University of Maine System’s top information technology official on Monday called on trustees to support major, multi-year investments to upgrade outdated wireless and classroom technology.
UMS trustees wrapped up a two-day regular meeting Monday at the University of Maine at Augusta.
Dick Thompson, the system’s chief information officer, urged the board of trustees to support spending about $45 million over a three-year period to help Maine’s universities catch up with peer institutions and prepare for the extensive collaboration and online learning capabilities required under the One University initiative.
“I will be a fierce advocate for this investment,” Thompson told the board.
He said the system should invest $24.8 million in wireless technology improvements on the system’s campuses, plus $17.2 million toward outfitting classrooms to make them more accessible for Web-based learning. Those improvements would be spread over a period of about three years. The remainder would go toward new positions and redesigning MaineStreet, the system’s online portal.
The UMS IT budget this year is about $22 million.
Thompson said UMS has fallen behind its peers on the IT front. Peer institutions spend about $1,050 on IT budgets for every student, faculty and staff member, he said. Maine spends less than $850.
Partly as a result, UMS wireless capacity hasn’t grown as quickly as it should have, Thompson argued. Right now, it sits around 54 megabits per second, which was the “pervasive standard” a decade earlier. Thompson said UMS should strive to attain 3.5 gigabits per second at its campuses by 2016 in order to catch up.
The $17.2 million investment in the classrooms would upgrade about 350 class spaces across the system’s seven campuses with consistent technology that staff can be trained to use and can rely on to work effectively.
Thompson said his current staff won’t be able to pull off this upgrade and training work without additional help. UMS IT was one of the first departments to undergo major restructuring as part of efforts to shrink the size of the system. Since the shrinking of IT, workload has increased. That, coupled with better compensation for IT professionals outside the university system, has increased employee turnover to 25 percent, he said.
The IT department lost 22 positions and reduced its budget by $3 million under these changes, and nearly all the remaining 164 staff moved onto campuses and out-of-system headquarters in Bangor.
Thompson said the smaller IT staff won’t be able to adequately handle the workload to complete these upgrades, train faculty and troubleshoot any problems. He requested about $1.5 million in funding for new positions to complete the IT work.
Trustees urged Thompson and his IT team come up with a work schedule and funding plans for these projects. It isn’t yet known how the system would finance the upgrades. Thompson is expected to report back with more detailed plans during the trustees’ next meeting in January.
UMS trustees also heard an update on the system’s finances, which have shown some signs of improvement since a tumultuous 2014-15 fiscal year, according to the system’s chief financial officer, Ryan Low.
A year ago, system officials projected a budget gap of $50 million in the coming fiscal year 2017. Now, following a series of cuts across the system, most notably at the University of Southern Maine, that projected gap has fallen to $20 million. The system hopes to be operating without any structural gaps by 2019, according to Chancellor James Page.
Low attributed much of the gap closing to “tremendous, but difficult, cost-cutting efforts.”
In 2014, expenses systemwide were about $530 million, but 2015 saw spending reduced by about $12 million, or 2.3 percent. That’s about on par with what the system spent in 2009.
However, some of that progress has been offset by reduced revenue at six of the system’s seven campuses. At the system’s largest campuses, flagging student enrollments are the main reason less money is coming in. That includes a 12 percent reduction in the number of graduate students attending the system’s universities.
Last week, the University of Maine and University of Southern Maine announced projected budget gaps of $7.2 million and $6 million, respectively. Those two campuses and others will be holding public discussions in coming weeks and months about their budget situations and plans to close the shortfalls.
Also during Monday’s meeting, the board encouraged the University of Southern Maine to continue ironing out plans for an international high school located on campus. USM President Glenn Cummings has said that is an effort to reverse the declining enrollment trend seen at USM in recent years, which is partially attributed to a shortage of potential students in the state.
Trustees also heard about the system’s Unified Online plan, which aims to restructure how the system will oversee its online course offerings. That will hit their desks in more detail in March after system officials have more chances to talk with faculty about their concerns with how the changes could impact teaching methods and faculty authority over courses.
The board also authorized spending up to $950,000 to demolish Kimball Hall at the University of Maine at Machias. The building was evacuated early this year due to structural concerns. Repairing and renovating the century-old, 28,000-square-foot building would have cost up to $8.5 million, according to contractor estimates.
Follow Nick McCrea on Twitter at @nmccrea213.