If you were unable to make the SAA budget forum, we are sorry you missed out on some great discussions. I would like to take the time to share some of the cost saving and efficiency ideas that your co-workers shared.�

Many times the point was made by fellow employees that staff needs to lead the change that Statewide is facing. SAA believes that a shift in culture starts with staff, not the administration. Please review the list below of the ideas generated from the forum. If you would like to add more ideas, please feel free to share with any SAA member or with Staff Alliance at https://www.alaska.edu/governance/staff-alliance/submissions/.�

Cost Saving Ideas:

� Employees volunteer to reduce hours/Equivalent Full Time (EFT) for the next three – four years. Scenario – reducing employment to 11 months will affect retirement, whereas reducing work to 30 hours a week will not.

� Discuss early separation options with interested employees. Early retirement options are mandated through legislation. The State does not want to go down that road.

� Close university down on Fridays – no classes or offices open; library, food facilities, and essential personnel still work.

� Encourage employees to conserve energy. E.g. turn off lights on their desk when leaving.

� Incentivize for using temps or student pools to fill vacant positions.

� Eliminate raises and bonus, including current 3.1% compensation increase in budget.

� Evaluate benefit rates to look for savings.

� Reduce overtime

� Explore comp time in lieu of overtime.

� Travel freezes. i.e. Max number of people that may go to BOR meeting.

� Hire freeze, continue 120 day wait for rehires

� Incentives to reduce travel

� Reduced pay for new top-level administrators.

� Top administrators volunteer a pay reduction

Efficiency Ideas:

� Telecommuting options for all employees – save on paying energy costs and office space

� Office sharing – combination of flextime and telecommuting. Spreading the current space of one employee to two or more employees.

� � Incentivize departmental budget carry forward. Incentivize so that departments become better stewards of their budget, instead of punishing them with not using their budget within the year.

� Pool student workers so that departments can share the cost and workload of a student worker.

� Administrative collaboration between departments. Creating a team and identifying strengths within to allocate job responsibilities

� Conference room rental income to external users, possibly a small rental rate for internal groups outside SW.

� Transparency from Administration regarding reductions. E.g. what would a 10% cut to SW look like = equate to employees lost

� What is SW’s core purpose? Does the department’s work support SW core purpose?

� Incentivize employees to think of opportunities to find revenue opportunities for university.

� Hire internally first