Require that all faculty post syllabi and related course materials on Blackboard rather than photocopy and distribute to students. This will reduce the expense we spend on paper and toner.

Our goal should continue to be 'no lay-offs' for BSU employees. As painful as it was for many university employees, furloughs seem to be the fairness way to ensure that all BSU employees contribute.

I appreciate the opportunity and vehicle to offer my comments.  1.  We could shorten the number of hours that the campus is operable to increase savings on utilities.  Perhaps closing administrative offices at 12 noon on Fridays.  2.  In CLT most of the lights are on sensors that do not work properly.  We could either repair and better monitor the sensors or remove them altogether, adding switches/dimmers that allow people to adjust lighting and turn it off when leaving for the day.  Right now some lights burn 24 hours.  3.  We could require that any future building projects have a generous percentage of it's power source from solar energy.

One area to reduce budget is to limit travel by faculty & staff. If the Faculty/staff are presenters,they should be allow to participate in conferences,workshops.Reduction in airfare/hotel cost should be limited. University thru the Foundation-should find creative ways to raise funds for various departmental scholarships,having fundraisers.Example:partnership with auto dealer in the area-raffle a car to raise funds for Athletics Department or Band/Music Department.Another area is to limited purchase of supplies/goods. 

- encourage online learning - saves 'space', 'carbon' and would be attractive to bring larger enrollment to BSU - use 'online' features to cut unnecessary trips to campus - use email effectively [set 'answer' time limit for faculty -24 hours?], could repl

Consider migrating to Google Voice, which provides transcripts and MP3s to users, as well as actual messages retrievable by phone, in lieu of current PBX system. It's not yet open to everyone or organizations, but it has a lot of potential.  Also, Florida State University has started to do away with faculty office lines to save money: http://www.tallahassee.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009907080320

Dear President Burnim and Admin. staff,  I'm eager to help in any kind of way.  I do have some suggestions.  I'm a commuter and have to travel over 60 miles each day I come to the BSU campus.  I know that many of the professors there are not for online courses.  But this would be a tremendous cut in your budget and it would help those students like myself that have to work while they continue their education.  I was very distraught when I came to BSU and found that there is such a minimum in online courses.  Another source if you have not already done so is to encourage those services and stores that the students and staff patronize to support BSU for every dollar they spend at these business.  Gas stations, grocery stores, restarants etc...  I hope these suggestions will be seriously taken in for consideration.

Ask people who are past retirment age and still working to retire voluntarily. (You may want to give them some financial inducement like a 'buy out.' Ask people who have retired in one institution and now work at Bowie,  e.g. in Education, to retire voluntarily. Offer a 'buy out' to people who are near retirement after having worked at Bowie for over say twenty years.

The financial wisdom of the recent new appointments to positions generated from the Provost's office should be reexamined. Many of them are too FRILLY. Bowie does not have enough foreign students to justify an International Students' Program.  Some of the people appointed to these positions are taken from the faculty where they are sorely more needed.

Faculty members and staff can be offered voluntary one year leave, early retirement and also a partial payment time off.

Stop all of the building in the Wiseman Center. It was fine the way it was. And also the booth and the gates that was set up outside of the campus was unnecessary. Stop the construction and save money. 

1 day furlough for employees with salaries from $35,000 - $40,000 -  2 day furlough for employees with salaries from $40,001 - $45,000 -  3 day furlough for employees with salaries from $45,001 - $50,000 -  4 day furlough for employees with salaries fr

Does BSU get rebates for Purchasing Card use?   I found this article for Anne Arundel County:  County Executive Leopold Reports $200K Rebate Resulting from Smart Use of Procurement Cards Annapolis (July 9, 2009) - County Executive John R. Leopold today reported that by simply using Procurement Cards for purchases, employees have saved nearly $200,000 in taxpayer dollars. 'I am very pleased that County employees are responsibly using procurement cards as a fiscally efficient and cost-effective method to make small purchases,' County Executive Leopold said. 'Procurement card use benefits both parties. The County secures goods and services quickly and our vendors are paid promptly at the point of sale.' Anne Arundel County has earned a $196,215.23 rebate through the Office of Central Services' Procurement Card Program in accordance with the provisions of its contract with US Bank. This rebate represents a 27% increase over last year's $154,196.84 rebate. The rebate is based on three contractual components: total annual spending, transaction size and client held days. This year the County's total card spending was almost $21 million, up 16% from last year. County Executive Leopold said. 'Transactions are closely reviewed every month and all spending is approved through each agency. Random audits are regularly conducted to ensure that cardholders are adhering to policies and procedures.'

furlough approach suggestion - close the university for all non-essential staff during spring break but let staff prorate the time over selected pay periods.  Another option would be the friday before memorial day.

with 8/26 message from Chan. Kirwan it becomes urgent that we protect our hard-won, hard-work salaries from any further erosion..if anything, [IMHO] we should be granted significant increases in salary across the board to match up with our 'family' of institutions at USM!  So let's get busy and on board with President Burnim's 'cuts' of small, low ROI programs and activities.....it'll hurt but maybe we can bring them all back in better times....?  Let's also enforce on campus speeding and parking rules & regs!  Really will be necessary with construction impacts..

I do not want to be furloughed AGAIN or have a salary reduction...here's a way to make up $$$ - increase parking fees to $125 AND charge that amount for EACH SEMESTER!!! That would put our parking rates closer to sister USM institutions AND probably raise enough cash to offset the furloughs....I think furloughs are done since they are 'easy' to do - in terms of button pushing - and no hard decisions need to be made...what about the President's vision to cut some low ROI programs and cut back on growth?  Those could also be very much money saving!  Also, as a scientist I need DATA to make good suggestions - NO ONE will give me a BSU Budget - I need data to make informed suggestions...Thanks

Here is a link to an article on time.com on how other colleges are cutting costs http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1921613,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

We could take away vacation days in lieu of/or to supplement futute furlough days.  Spelman College has implemented this initiative.

Since one option for reducing the budget is through fuloughs, I would suggest we implement a plan that offer employees, expecially staff, more flexibility than the AY 09 furlough plan.  The plan implemented by College Park last year allowed staff to take furlough days over a period of four to five months;and allowed staff to take 'furlough' time in increments of either four or eight hours. Having this flexibility would benefit parents of small children who often times have 1/2 days and full days out of school for various reasons. Thank you for soliciting and considering our feedback. regarding this issue which is sure to present a financial hardship either way.

I think we can save money by reducing everyone's travel budget for FY2010.  

The AC is still on in the library -- on average, the temperature on the DIT side is 63-67 degrees. Does it really need to be so low? Adjusting the temperature might save $$.