Spring Break
Audit of PeopleSoft approved
Mike Corpos, Daily Staff Writer
The project involves centralizing operations dealing with human resources using PeopleSoft software.
The controversy stems from the continually growing cost of the project and the sources for the funding, according to a letter from state senator Richard Alarcon and Assemblyman Manny Diaz to the state joint legislative audit committee and CSU Chancellor Charles B. Reed.
"People in various sectors of CSU have been raising questions since 1997," said Alice Sunshine of the CFA communication staff.
California Faculty Association President Susan Meisenhelder said, "We are concerned because the dollars used to fund CMS come from the same base CSU budget that funds instruction. The portion of the CSU budget that funds instruction has already fallen below 50-percent, which is unconscionable for a teaching university. Now, with our state budget crisis, we must invest our limited resources in the classroom."
According to Sunshine, at its inception in 1997, the project was estimated to cost $400 million over seven years.
According to Steve Sloan, president of the San Jose State University chapter of the California State Employees Association, PeopleSoft specializes in enterprise resource management software, which allows large operations, such as universities, to centralize everything from ordering office supplies to personnel issues and payroll.
Sunshine said the California Faculty Association is trying to get CSU to release how much of its total budget goes to instruction and how much goes to the management system.
Andy Lyon, the CFA's research analyst assigned to the Common Management System audit, explained the difficulties in getting such information out of the CSU.
"It's extremely difficult to find out how much CSU is spending," Lyons said. "We have filed several information requests under the freedom of information act and they replied with what we feel is incomplete information."
Lyons said the CFA is having trouble tracking down the information on each campus' expenses.
"They will tell us how much the chancellor's office is spending, but not how much the individual campuses are spending on (the Common Management System)," he said.
The financial data is not fully collected, but Lyons said, "The information makes us a little suspicious that there are going to be significant cost overruns on campus."
Lyons said a lot of people have been suspicious of the plan, "I definitely see the need for the technology on campus, but the manner in which the CSU is financing the project is very problematic for us."
According to Lyons, the CSU didn't ask the state legislature for special allocations to fund the project, but simply turned to its own budget and took the money from other areas to pay for the new system.
"The instruction budget has been significantly declining over the last 10 years," Lyons said. "With the budget crisis, it's not appropriate to spend money on a computer system while students are faced with reduced access to services."
Lyons said so far there has been no cost/benefit analysis of the Common Management System project. "At this point, we don't even know if it's worth the $400 million expenditure that CSU is engaging in."
