Regents to inspect administrative processes, increase transparency

September 13, 2010 by Haley Etchison 

Klaich expands, reflects on board’s Efficiency and Effectiveness Initiative

The Nevada System of Higher Education Board of Regents approved the expansion of its Efficiency and Effectiveness Initiative while meeting in Reno last week, which will intensify review of overhead and administrative costs and eliminate redundancies in institutional operations.

The goal is to increase graduation rates and improve workforce development and research, while saving schools money.

Board Vice Chair Jason Geddes and Regent Kevin Page will head the initiative, collaborating with Chancellor Dan Klaich and the presidents of NSHE’s eight institutions.

“Nevada is at a critical junction where we can choose to do business as usual or we can adapt to the challenge at hand,” Geddes said in a statement. “The expanded scope of the Efficiency and Effectiveness Initiative will allow us to identify operational areas that can be streamlined as well as provide a clearer picture on how we can make our students better prepared for the new economy.”

The initiative will take on a new charge to assess business operations through internal reviews of purchasing, sourcing, payroll and human resource responsibilities.
“I am going to be relentless in my pursuit of honest numbers,” Klaich said. “I think that there is absolutely nothing more important to everything we do than the credibility of what we say.”

Page explained in a statement the need for ever-increasing vigilance during the system’s tough financial times.

“We want to make sure we are implementing the best practices not only in the classroom, but in all of our day-to-day operations,” he said.

Klaich said in his report on the E&E Initiative at the meeting that a primary goal of the project is to establish transparent metrics for calculating success.

Klaich has targeted NSHE’s community colleges for extensive research on how to bring about that success.

He focused on the progress of the Community College Task Force during his discussion with the board. He said that the group is looking at administrative processes at the schools as well as academic affairs, and that objectivity is key in their analysis.

“I’m not going into this with preconceived notions about what we do well or what we can do better,” he said.