On March 9, the Administrative Resource Review Committee released its final report, the results of months of the committee's efforts to make Brandeis more economically efficient through "[examining] staffing levels, compensation and trends" as well as "prospectively [assessing] possibilities for efficiencies and savings going forward," identifying "an additional [added to previous administrative cuts] $1.49 million-$2.74 million in savings, with some achievable starting in 2011 and others achievable, as with ongoing academic initiatives, over a longer time period through 2015," according to the report.Created by University President Jehuda Reinharz on Oct. 19, 2009, the Committee focuses on the organization of the administrative staff at Brandeis as well as the broad interests of the University, such as faculty and facilities staffing, compensation and benefits, energy investments and use of space on campus.

The committee, chaired by Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Jeffrey Apfel, worked with other non-University research groups to analyze University spending habits and compare them to the spending habits of comparable institutions in the market.

The report states that Brandeis' procurement, widely defined as purchasing the right materials for the right price at the right time, in the future may dovetail with other institutions of the Boston Consortium, which is comprised of universities in and around Boston including Brandeis, Tufts University, Emerson College and Wellesley College, since "the bulk of the projected savings are tied to collective action."

A wellness initiative and joined purchase of health care are two areas in which the Committee predicts possibly working with the Boston Consortium as early as 2011, while Apfel stated in a recent interview that efforts such as combined paper and office supply procurement are more likely to take place in the near future.

According to the ARRC report released on the Brandeis Web site, "The Committee found that salaries for both staff and the senior administrative component tied closely to market levels for the positions in question." Moreover, the salaries of the top paid academic administrators were found to be at 50.5 percent, extremely close to the 50th percentile within the market for similar institutions. This means that Brandeis academic administrators are being paid roughly the average salary of employees of a comparable position in the market. Moreover, senior administrators weighed in at 57.4 percent, a slightly more elevated salary than the average, but based on 12.1 years of service at Brandeis compared to the four-years average of academic administrators.

Employee compensation has increased over past years, as newly hired staff has been acquired at rates closer to market averages, where previous staff was acquired at rates below the market average. While staff benefit packages at Brandeis, which include healt-care benefits and retirement contributions, are not quite as expansive as other comparable institutions according to Apfel, the ARRC report concludes that compensation for recently hired staff has risen to meet the market 50th percentile.

Facilities employees at Brandeis are paid slightly above the market average, which the ARRC report justifies by explaining that the "University has in the past supported this for social justice reasons." When asked if more competitive pay has brought more qualified educators to Brandeis, Apfel replied that although his time at Brandeis has been short, he has noticed the retention rate of professors increase at Brandeis and noted the efficiency of a more market-competitive pay, which combats the "lost productivity" that occurs in the process of rehiring a position.

The report also focused on areas such as energy investment. The committee has endorsed facilities findings, which encourage the University to "modify its natural gas and electricity contracts to take advantage of current market conditions for savings." Keeping in mind the advantages of correct procurement-a term that describes buying the right materials at the right time for the right amount in order to create return income-the Committee is also embracing "an important green initiative: another round of mechanical investments capable of generating a positive financial return from utility savings." Moreover, the Committee embraces a "managed printing initiative," which was brought to attention through public forums held by the ARRC.

In a recent interview, Apfel referred to a "new capability" for Brandeis, which will be the result of a movement to centralize physical information about the University in the form of a space study. The study will compare "physical configuration [of buildings] to use to time of day" to make Brandeis more efficient by scheduling better use of the time and resources available.

Library and Technology Services has proposed a "reduction of public desktop computing clusters [that] would result in an immediate cost savings of $45,000" as well as "migration from locally supported email services to hosted email services [that] would result in annual cost savings of $35,000."

The Committee is still in the process of reviewing many of the concerns raised through the community, many having to do with green initiatives such as paper reduction, fax machine reduction and "analysis of whether Brandeis might emphasize perennials in its landscaping program.