Information and Educational Technology, shouldering its share of the UC Davis spending cuts required for 2008-09, has decreased its budget by $1.46 million.

To meet this target, IET identified reductions based on the best interests of the campus and an attempt to preserve core services for faculty, staff and students.

"We took a risk-assessment approach, and focused on preserving programs and services critical to faculty, students and staff--and protecting initiatives such as SmartSite and UCDNet3, the six-year upgrade to the campus telecommunications network," said Dave Shelby, assistant vice provost for IET.

Nevertheless, the IET budget reductions represent difficult decisions, and include curtailing and eliminating some services.

"We had to reduce a number of programs, which will unfortunately have a significant impact on the campus," he said. "This challenge was made all the more difficult by the magnitude of the campus's budget reduction and the increasing reliance on information technology by virtually all parts of the campus."

The current plan would cut the equivalent of about 13 full-time jobs, ranging from assistants to senior managers. Other savings would come from streamlined administration and renegotiated vendor contracts. Some cuts are expected to be immediate, while others will need to be implemented over a longer period to ensure an orderly transition and, hopefully, help ease the impact on faculty, staff and students.

Reductions in staff positions are expected to affect services or increase response times in various areas. Examples from the current plan range from programming and software licensing coordination, to photo and special events services, night crew tech service and classroom repairs, and phone bill administration.