By Jeff Hamlin
Assistant News Director

UNC System President Erskine Bowles will meet with chancellors today to discuss cutting administration costs. The urgency of the situation was expressed in an email reported by the Raleigh News and Observer this weekend.

Duke University Business Professor Sim Sitkin says it isn’t unusual for someone from a business background to run a university in a similar way.

In his email obtained by the Raleigh News and Observer and printed Saturday, Bowles cited a report from the newspaper that found administrative positions within the UNC system jumped 28% over five years. Bowles called that “an absolute embarrassment.” Earlier this summer, a report issued by UNC-Chapel Hill showed there were ten layers of upper management at the university.

Chancellors are drafting plans to deal with a 10% budget cut, and Bowles told them he wants absolute proof they concentrated on cutting administrative costs first.

Bowles had stressed the need for administrative costs to be slashed earlier this year, but Sitkin says the message didn’t get through for a variety of reasons.

The UNC system took a $171 million cut to its budget in the current year, and next year will likely have to cut another $246 million.