State-appropriated budget cuts are limiting the Office of Information Technology’s ability to become a more effective resource for students, faculty members and staff.
OIT absorbed $1.1 million in recurring budget cuts this year due to the state’s 2013-2014 budget reduction, according to a University announcement.
As a result, the department eliminated almost 11 positions and now has to prioritize and realign its resources.
“This budget reduction and accompanying loss of positions will have a lasting impact on the organization’s ability to provide timely responses to requests for various campus services,” according to the announcement.
Though the department was required to cut 10.75 positions, only one employee was laid off, because 9.75 positions recently became vacant. However, Marc Hoit, the vice chancellor for the Office of Information Technology at N.C. State, said these unfilled positions will limit the University’s ability to assist the N.C. State community.
“[We’re losing] needed services, and these cuts are reducing our capacity to do work,” Hoit said.
According to Hoit, the employee was laid off because losing his or her service would be less detrimental than cutting other programs.
OIT’s budget has been cut four of the past five years, and this year will result in an additional 5 percent cut, according to Hoit.
Hoit said the cuts will affect other departments as well, because OIT deals with networking, the wireless help desk, student registration, the financial aid system, human resources for hiring and other services.
“By cutting these things it’s not like we’d stop doing those services, but what’s already happened is we’re not as nimble as we could be so when people ask for help or a service,” Hoit said. “You might need to wait a couple more minutes on the phone because we’ll be understaffed, or creating a new system for HR might take four months instead of two. The cuts will slow down our ability to help the University do all the new things we wants to do. As we look at the new changes that we want to make in order to keep improving, it will be harder to do because we have to work harder to maintain existing systems.”
Hoit said the cuts will affect students directly in at least two ways.
The first involves the development of a program that allows executive officers and deans to send mass emails to faculty members, students and staff. Currently, university administrators have to go through a long process in which they must have all messages approved before being sent out.
OIT is developing a website where executive officers and deans could send out these emails by simply logging into a website. However, the project has been delayed due to the state-appropriated budget cuts.
“Instead of doing all that work to send out a mass message you’d be able to just click send with the new system. We were 85 percent done with the new program, but by losing the people we lost, the site isn’t operational even though we should have been done a few months ago,” Hoit said.
Another project that has been delayed due to budget cuts is a new calendar system that would be a practical resource for students and faculty members to find events around campus, according to Hoit.
“Now, most groups use Google calendars for events but they’re all separate,” Hoit said. “We are developing a program to link all the calendars for different groups and departments and make it so you can access them centrally. That was part of our internal communication plan, but again, budget cuts have slowed us down.”
Hoit said OIT’s staff decreased since his arrival at N.C. State, and budget cuts are a university-wide problem.
“When I started five years ago, I had 320 staff, and the current count is about 230. Maybe 320 was too many, but 230 is not enough to do what the University would like to get done,” Hoit said. “The dilemma is there are a lot of priorities; we need advisors and we need more teachers. These cuts are everywhere, and I’m not the only one who’s feeling the effects and struggling to get stuff done.”
However, Hoit said OIT will still remain a valuable resource for students and faculty members.
“We’re doing everything we can do to be innovative and we’re going to do everything we can to do a good job and work with what we have to be an effective resource for the University,” Hoit said.
