Staff, students attend town hall meetings
Ray Greenberg, M.D., Ph.D., MUSC president, held a staff town hall meeting, April 1, and a student town hall meeting April 7. Following are questions, along with his edited answers, that were asked during both meetings.
College
of Health Professions student Shelly-Ann Bowen takes a moment to talk to
Dr. Ray Greenberg, MUSC president after the student town hall meeting.
With Greenberg are Drs. Valerie West, associate provost for educational
programs and interim dean of student life, and John Raymond, vice
president, academic affairs and provost.
Current economic status of university. What percentage of MUSC’s
revenue comes from the state vs. other sources?
MUSC—including the university, UMA and MUHA—has an annual budget of
$1.1 billion. The hospital is almost half of that amount. Our state appropriation
is down to $90 million (2002-03); looking at it as a percentage of our
total budget, less than 9 percent of total budget comes from the state.
State legislators are not planning to appropriate money for raises
to state employees for this year. What are the implications for MUSC?
The state historically has given mandated raises. At other agencies
that are completely dependent on state money, the state would fully fund
these raises. At our institution, we’re generating most of the money so
when raises are mandated, we’ve had to scramble to find money from other
sources. Many of you know your local state representatives. I’m not sure
they fully understand the hardship that has been placed on state employees.
What they’ve done is take a very hard line about not increasing any taxes.
The very first line in the state budget passed by the House is a half-billion
dollars of tax relief. We have a little bit of margin but it will
be hard to find another $10 million next year.
Will the university be expecting a lot of job cuts because of this?
I can tell you that the strong consensus at the vice president level
is that we will do everything we can to avoid a reduction in force or furloughs.
The reality today is that it is very hard to find another $10 million to
cut out of the budgets with out affecting personnel. Research funding has
helped keep us going. The faculty of the university is bringing in record
amounts of research funding. Our goal was $140 million of research funding
this year. We’ll not only meet that, we’ll surpass it. It will be a challenge
to keep up that momentum. We don’t have space to grow into. But research
growth has been key. It addition, our philanthropy has also been growing
at about 20 percent per year even in spite of the bad economy. Increased
student tuition by 10 percent per year and our clinical practice revenue
has really come back strong.
You mentioned RIFs (Reductions In Force). My department has just
experienced that. Nine people have just been let go. What’s being done
for us as employees....nothing?
The first thing that we’re obligated to do is try to find a suitable
position within the institution for the people who are displaced. We are
often able to do that , but we can not always find another position, especially
when budgets are so stretched.
Where is MUSC getting the money needed to support all of the construction
going on around us at a time when we want to be supporting human resources
in our institution?
The Hollings Cancer Center addition is a roughly $50 million building;
$40 million of that has come as federal money that Sen. Fritz Hollings
earmarked in appropriations. Another $10 million came from the state, earmarked
for construction. The Children’s Research Institute is financed by bonds
combined with private fundraising. Our goal for private contributions is
$16 million, of which we’ve raised about $10 million so far. We have to
build buildings in order to grow programs and compete for new funds. You’ve
got to have a balance between the facilities and human resources.
What is the status of computer (hardware/software) technology on
campus?
Computer technology on campus is not where I would like it to be. There
is a new chief information officer who is coming and has a background both
in a university and hospital setting. I believe he will be someone who
will help move us towards the next level. Do we spend money on people or
spend on equipment, facilities and infrastructure? It's one of those very
difficult trade-offs that we’ll have to make. I’d love to invest new money
to try to improve efficiencies in operations.
What’s the latest news about plans for the new hospital? Why are
we building buildings downtown while still considering a chance to move
to another site in the north area?
Every ounce of the planning that we’re doing right now is focused on
making the downtown campus work. The consultants told us that moving to
another location would cause years of disorder in trying to manage two
campuses because we couldn’t move all at once. The separation of clinical
and research activities was of great concern to the university leadership
and to the outside consultants. I think what you will hear soon is that
we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress; we have not worked out all
the issues but I believe we're going to remain downtown. I also believe
there will be great opportunities for development beyond the current confines
of our campus that will truly make MUSC spectacular in the years
ahead. But you’ve got to have a 30 to 50 year vision because that’s the
lifetime of the hospital that we are planning.
When you get down to 9 percent and less support coming from the state,
why remain a public institution?
We are trying to restructure the state's three research universities
to create a new governance structure and also freeing up some money in
the process to build facilities. This will allow us to create more
jobs. This is the first time I’m hearing our state’s leaders think about
our state’s research universities as engines of economic development
in our state. We just had an economic impact study done for MUSC and found
there are 29,000 jobs that can be directly or indirectly related to the
presence of MUSC. We ourselves employ 9,000 people, but there’s another
20,000 jobs because of all of the services that university employees need—such
as food, clothing, housing. I think finally our elected representatives
are beginning to see that we have tremendous potential for helping to elevate
S.C. in the years ahead. People think that our government is fat and inefficient.
I’m here to tell you that I don’t think we’re fat and inefficient. There
are ways that we can work more effectively, but you can’t increase size
of operation and do it with less employees.
How will new plans affect parking for students on campus? What options
will students have?
Parking will be determined based on the needs of the new hospital.
They’re still looking at that question. The hospital will be built elevated
because of flood control issues, and there will be parking underneath the
entire hospital. Most of the outpatient parking will be accommodated underneath
the building. We’re trying to acquire the county parking garage, located
behind the hospital site. We presently rent spaces there, but over time
we’d like to take over the whole facility. My hope is that we would have
enough space to accommodate student parking. As you know, north of the
Crosstown there are ground-level lots that probably should be converted
into structured parking. We’re talking with the city about that and trying
to improve our shuttle service. We’d like to let the city take this over
rather than trying to run it on our own. We’ve been in discussions with
the College of Charleston and The Citadel about a joint operation.
Hopefully this will be a step in a positive direction. We probably need
about 3,000 more spaces and we need to build as quickly as possible.
Even in the short term during the time of construction, we’ll have to come
up with other alternatives for student parking.
How would the financial aspect of the new hospital affect students?
It shouldn’t affect students at all. The hospital generates
revenue from patient care. The real pressure on student tuition has nothing
to do with the clinical operation. It has to do with the state budget.
MUSC has lost $20 million per year of state funding during the last two
years, almost 20 percent of our university appropriations from the state.
That’s what’s creating pressure on student tuition. The reality is, we
don’t have a large enough student body here like Clemson or USC to make
up for loss through tuition. It’s a real concern for students and therefore
for us. More than 90 percent of our student body is on some type of financial
aid for school. It’s a huge issue but until the state budget situation
improves, I think we’re going to continue to see increases in our tuition.
What about USC/MUSC consolidation status?
I can tell you there are currently some discussions trying to explore
how we can function more efficiently. They are not merger discussions.
We are talking about ways that we can avoid duplication of some support
services and educational efforts. We are also discussing collaboration
between our nursing and pharmacy school as well. They will be slow and
modest changes rather than quick dramatic changes.
What’s being done to improve the number of slots for residency positions
in programs?
The federal government reimburses teaching hospitals for the expenses
of medical education. The real challenge here is that a number of years
back, the government placed caps on the number of residents they’d reimburse
based on the size of clinical enterprise. MUSC currently operates above
our caps, with the hospital absorbing extra expenses. With new ACGME resident
work hours limits, there will be a demand for more residents in some
services. If a resident can only work a certain number of hours,
it requires additional residents or other health care providers to fill
in the gaps.
What are the plans for the Wellness Center during the new hospital
construction?
The first phase includes removal of the left side of the building—a
former dormitory built about 50 years ago which houses the CAPs program,
Parallel Curriculum, Center for Academic Excellence/Writing Center, etc.
The newer part of the building probably wouldn’t need to be replaced until
Phase 3 of hospital plan, about 15 years from now. Where would this replacement
be located? One possibility is to put it into “G” lot. Having it there
would really consolidate student services, and the library building
truly becomes a student support center. This may not happen for at least
another dozen years.
Can you speak about the recent legislation concerning the status
of the three research universities?
Just this last week, a bill was introduced in the South Carolina House
to restructure governance of the state’s three research universities—Clemson,
USC and MUSC—by creating a research oversight board. My hope is that it
will encourage stronger working relationships among these three and
really get us thinking and working together in a cooperative way.
What are plans to increase/improve security specifically in areas
of new construction and building/renovation?
The construction connected with the Children’s Research Institute has
taught us a great deal. We do security checks on contractors—ID passes,
surveillance through new video cameras, and extra patrols by the Office
of Public Safety.
What’s the current time line for the start of new hospital construction?
Construction will potentially begin at the end of 2004. There are many
steps along the way prior to beginning construction. What this does is
put pressure on us for interim planning or moving things around—trying
to make it as minimally disruptive as possible.
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