Admitting Waste

I just got an email from the administration that included the following:

We have remained focused on our core mission and our commitment to academic quality even as we managed the loss of nearly $75 million in state support. As a result, we continue to be a university with high quality and high demand.

So basically, they are saying that we were able to cut $75 million a year without any real negative effects on the university.  We were wasting $75 million each year for the past decade or so.

The rest of the email was asking for volunteers to lobby the government for more money.  This is a farce.  The email basically admits that they did not really need the money.  We would have been fine without it.  They threw away massive amounts of money each year, just because they could.  There was no reason to make cuts, so waste just just building up.

Any organization will become wasteful over time.  You need the occasional burst of pressure to shake things up and restore efficiency.