By SUSAN JONES
The Support Responsibility Center Committee (SRCC) is a new group established under Pitt’s responsibility-centered budget model to oversee what the primary responsibility centers are charged for support services.
The committee examines support units’ budgets and reviews opportunities to improve service delivery and utilization. Those units include academic support, IT, administrative services, Philanthropic & Alumni Engagement, Human Resources, facilities, general university, libraries and research administration.
“We knew we had to pay for support services from the beginning,” said Anthony Delitto, dean of the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and a member of the committee. “… We all need Pitt IT, we all need HR, we all need all the business and operations.”
The committee — with representatives from primary and support RCs, Student Affairs, Strategic Planning and Health Sciences — was created because of concerns by the resource-driven responsibility centers, primarily the schools, to know what those costs are and to have some oversight of them. They review the support units’ budgets and make recommendations to the executive budget committee.
“I think the other real concern is how do we gauge the services we’re getting for that cost,” Delitto said. This year, the leaders of the primary responsibility centers filled out satisfaction surveys about the support units for the first time. “It at least gives us a chance to tell people whether or not we’re satisfied or not satisfied, and how responsive the support units are to the needs of all the schools.”
He said the SRCC met frequently during budget season — late fall to early spring — and did deep dives into the budgets of four or five of the nine support units. “I think one of the things we have to think about is scale,” he said. “Is it adequate to just review once every two or three years every support RC, because it doesn’t seem like it’s feasible to look at all of them every year. We have day jobs.”
Another key question for Delitto is how an advisory role will work as a governance structure.
“There are clearly some support RCs that have problems satisfying all their customers. And I don’t know how that’s going to play out as we as we go on,” he said, noting that his initial impression is that the support RCs “certainly ask for a lot of money.”
“Some of it we look at and it’s hard for me to judge, but when you have to replace the roof on Heinz Chapel, you just have to do it,” he said. “But then there’s others that are more in question. I like the way the committee goes about it from the standpoint of making sure that it’s consistent with the Plan for Pitt. We also talk about the ability of the support RC to carry it out. In other words, is it a moonshot kind of thing, or is it one of these things that can be immediately implemented and you really see results right away? Not that a moonshot shouldn’t be looked at, but the return on investment is something we look at.”
They particularly look at hard returns, such as “when we talk about doing something that’s going to … help all the schools increase enrollment, there’s an immediate return on investment. That’s something a lot of deans would be very happy about, even if it wasn’t for my school.” For example, he said adding more infrastructure for recruiting graduate and professional students is something deans would likely support.
Delitto said he’s reserving judgement on the success of the SRCC. “If we continue to pour a lot of money into support RCs and the service they’re providing isn’t satisfying its customers, then I would say the SRCC is not functioning as well. But if we start to see improvement and satisfaction… that alone to me shows that there’s at least some functionality to this governance structure.”
Overlapping services
One area that Sanjeev Shroff, interim dean of the Swanson School of Engineering, questioned was why his school was paying a substantial amount to the centralized Pitt IT when the school has 11 in-house IT people who are paid through the engineering school budget.
Sastry said the steering committee looked at whether schools should get charged based on the specific work that the support unit is doing for the school or should they use more of a portfolio approach based on each school’s size.
“One of the things that we got a very strong recommendation from our consultants, and when I talked to other schools, was do not make exceptions,” Sastry said. “It seems like you’re going to get to a more exact number, but the truth of the matter is, you’re not really going to get to that exact number, and it’s going to cause incredible amounts of complication.”
Schools might need to look at the areas where services are duplicated to make cuts, he said.
“If you have people in your own area doing IT and you’re paying an IT charge, that is then an area where you have to look at it and say, ‘Does this makes sense for my unit?’” Sastry said. “’Is it core that I own my own IT areas?’ And that answer might be different unit by unit.”
The school can then talk to Pitt IT and see if they can provide the same level of service that the in-house techs now handle and if that would be less expensive, “then maybe you transfer the service,” Sastry said. “If the answer is no, then maybe you keep the service and then what you’re paying for in your IT charge is really all the other things that IT does. … It raises the question on efficiency, for sure.”
Paying for space
Another big expense for schools under this new model is for Pitt-owned facilities each uses. Previously, schools paid for any leased space they used, but not Pitt-owned spaces. Now they will be charged per square foot. Delitto said the number he’s heard is around $50 per square foot, which is more than they pay for leased space.
Sastry said in year one, the money for the space isn’t coming out of the schools’ budgets per se, “but it again provides transparency and a potential incentive for schools. Because, going forward, if they’re hanging on to space that they’re not using, they can give up that space and get more budget room. Or, if they want more space, they now have to tie it to a financial performance.”
Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.
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