Board of Regents officials announced last week that the academic review portion of its Transparent, Inclusive Efficiency Review will be slowed down to give the board more time to collect feedback from faculty and staff.

Deloitte Consulting was hired by the board in February to perform a comprehensive review of institutional resources, costs and efficiencies at the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa, Iowa’s three regent institutions. 

Due to the delay, a scheduling conflict has occurred with KH Consulting, the firm contracted by Deloitte to review academic efficiency. The review was scheduled to be completed in December, but that date may now change.

“It’s our understanding this [review] will be delayed temporarily,” said Janeane Beck, a spokeswoman for the board.

According to Beck, Deloitte is currently searching for another firm to conduct the academic portion of the review.

The review could save the regent universities between $30 and $80 million annually once the new measures are fully implemented, according to Deloitte.

The Board of Regents originally hired Deloitte for $2.45 million but agreed to pay an additional $867,955 in June to supplement the study.

The efficiency review, currently in phase two of three, is implementing “business cases” to determine the longterm viability of some of Deloitte’s proposals. One proposal, the consolidation of building and supply contracts in order to negotiate more favorable prices for all three regent universities, could save $16 to $40 million in the next 18 to 24 months, according to Deloitte.

In June, Deloitte and the board narrowed the 175 money-saving proposals delivered in phase one down to 17 “opportunities” to estimate the impact and effort required to implement the proposals.

“What phase two will provide is the opportunity to take a closer look at those areas that were identified in phase one,” said Miles Lackey, Iowa State’s representative to the review committee.

Rick Ferraro, the project director for Deloitte Consulting, believes the $1.45 billion fiscal 2015 budget of the regent institutions gives them leverage in negotiating contracts.

“Because these three institutions spend so much money, there is a big opportunity to just refine this in the next increment of standardization and cooperation across the system,” Ferraro said.

There is some concern about job losses among faculty and staff at the universities as a result of the review.

When asked about potential job losses at a public forum in June, Ferraro said that those details had not yet been worked out, but it was unrealistic to expect no adjustment in jobs.

“There’s always a possibility of that, to be perfectly honest,” Ferraro said.

Phase three of the review is going to include the designing, testing and launching of all of the improvements the board approves. Phase three was scheduled to be completed in December but is now subject to delay because of KH Consulting’s scheduling conflict.

The Board of Regents is scheduled to meet again Sept. 10 at Iowa State.