UC Berkeley prefers consultants to hard work on budget crisis

UC Berkeley’s budget gap has grown to $150 million, & Chancellor Birgeneau is spending money that isn't there on $3,000,000 consultants. (A world-class East Coast University is doing the same as UC Berkeley without consultants: $0 cost). His reasons range from the need for impartiality to requiring the consultants "thinking".

Does this mean that the Faculty & management of UC Berkeley – flagship campus of the greatest public system of higher education in the world - lack the thinking, integrity, impartiality, innovation to identify savings? Have they been fudging their research for years?

The consultants will, by the way, get their recommendations from faculty & staff interviews; yet $150 million of inefficiencies could be found internally if the Chancellor & Provost Breslauer did the WORK of their $500,000 jobs (This simple point is lost on Breslauer, Birgeneau).

The victims of this folly are Faculty, Students & taxpayers.

There is only one conclusion as to why inefficiencies are not volunteered by faculty & staff: Chancellor Birgeneau & Provost Breslauer have lost the credibility & trust of Cal Faculty & Staff. Even if the faculty agrees the consultants' recommendations - disagreeing might put their jobs in jeopardy - the underlying problem of lost credibility & trust remains.