Cost savings reported

The Eagle writes about a draft of the Shared Services reports:

About $15 million in savings has been identified by teams responsible for merging administrative functions of Texas A&M University and the 11-university system that governs it, according to a draft report.

The ideas include combining lobbying efforts in Washington at a savings of $298,000; eliminating LEED certification -- a designation of environmentally sustainable construction -- "while still meeting requirements," to save about $190,000;

Skipping certifications "while still meeting requirements" could save even more money if applied more generally. Vision 1920 wonders how much money we waste on things like maintaining our accreditation. It would be so much cheaper to just say we meet the requirements.

and sharing purchases of desktop computers systemwide at a savings of $2.5 million.

To save $2.5M/year on desktop computer purchases it seems like we must be buying a lot of computers. For the estimated 2,000 computers expected to be bought in FY10, that comes to a savings of $1250 per computer. How do we do it? From the draft report:

Based on the FY10 contract, we estimate a total savings of $908,000, and an increase in savings over FY09 of $227,000.

Translation: if we calculate total savings based on a high enough retail price, which we are not paying now, we can claim massive savings. The actual savings comparing what was done in FY09 vs what we could do in FY10 is a lot smaller.

"It's taking that money and saving it for the next biennium. I really think some of the California schools wish they would have gone through the same exercise a lot earlier," he said.

We get to save it for the next biennium?