Fiscal Irresponsibility Could Possibly Lead To Shaw's Demise

Six years ago, salaries to Shaw employees maintained  Shaw's infrastructure and commanded over 50% of our total budget. Today, major functions of our University are  outsourced to more than seventy companies. Non-competitive bidding has resulted in a number of costly vendors who  perform most major University services such as landscaping, building maintenance, copying, mowing, waste services, bookstore, postal services, food services, help desk, touring, credit cards and cell phone use for administrators, course management programs, management and public relations  consultants, networking, housekeeping, and payroll. 

Let us indicate one such example. The GuideStar report lists one of our largest contractors in 2004 as the Aramark  Corporation who provided Food Services to Shaw at a yearly  cost of $1,560,883. Today, with fewer students who offset  inflationary trends, Thompson Hospitality still commands  roughly $360,000 extra per year for food services.  Furthermore, outsourcing has plummeted Shaw's personnel  budget to around 30% while our infrastructure totters at the
precipice.
 
A loyal Shaw employee is concerned with the prosperity of  Shaw and will not tolerate other employees living in filth. An outsourced worker is only concerned about doing the least possible work required to complete the contracted job.  Our managers could have decided to curtail spending on such  massive wasteful outsourcing. In addition, they could have
eliminated pay disparities favoring top administrators and  their assistants. Demonstrating leadership, they also could have spent less on frivolous auxiliary endeavors and
allocated more resources to educational programs that truly  help students become "only the best." Instead, our managers are implementing the worst possible options for dedicated Shaw employees: reducing faculty and staff  salaries, eliminating their benefits, and outsourcing their services. Such ill-timed mandates might reduce our personnel budget by another two million dollars. However, undermining Shaw's employee base will cripple Shaw for decades, long after these managers have departed our great institution.