Over the first few weeks of July the ANU has executed a rather large consultation program, ranging from online polling, to open face-to-face forums with staff and students.
Apparently over 1,000 people attended these belt-tightening brainstorming sessions forums, and over 300 suggestions were made online.
Today the ANU revealed their packet of measures, detailing their plans over the next few years to both cut costs at ANU as well as increase profits.
Have a read if you’re interested.
ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Young has also posted his speech online detailing most of the big ticket items in the package.
Here are a few of the highlights:
Increase in fees for parking and for international students:
We have historically set our international fees as some of the lowest in the Group of Eight, despite the value of an ANU degree globally. This means we have room to move, particularly given the falling Australian dollar. We had already planned to increase our international fees by 5 per cent in 2014 and again in 2015, but will increase those fees by a further 5% in 2015, generating an additional $6 million dollars a year. In every forum, the issue of the University’s low parking fees was raised. Our parking fees are much lower than commercial rates and even lower than taking public transport to work. These fees will rise to match the costs of public transport.
Reduced staff numbers:
We aim to reduce our professional staff numbers by 230. Natural attrition will not achieve the reduction, so I announce we will offer a voluntary early retirement scheme aimed at delivering a savings of $20.9 million to the recurrent budget by 2015. We have over 500 professional staff aged over 55. We have allocated $21 million over 2013-15 to fund such a scheme, meaning that real savings will not arrive until 2014-15. Before I go on, I should note here, however, that if the Federal Government does reprioritise funding to the sector, the size of the staff reduction may be smaller.
Reviewing energy expenses:
ANU has an energy bill of $17 million a year, but we have no coordinated energy saving action plan, no overall data collection on energy use and no comprehensive study on energy savings opportunities. I believe that savings of $2 million per year are achievable. We will spend $1 million over 2 years to install metering, conduct a university-wide review and commence implementation of solutions.
It’s not all doom and gloom though, staff who do stay with their jobs will receive pay rises.
So I announce today that effectively immediately, all ANU staff will receive a 2% salary increase. That increase will be backdated to 1 July, and paid on 1 August. It will be followed by a further 2% pay rise on 1 July 2014.
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