UNM Press to cut back

The Provost’s Office will not outsource the UNM Press warehouse operation, but several employees still aren’t confident that their jobs are safe.

Joyce Perz, who works in Accounts Receivable at UNM Press, said a memo sent by the Provost’s Office contains language that makes her question the future of UNM Press’s warehouse department. She said the Provost’s Office has called for “substantive changes” in the operation of the warehouse department.
“Now, what would the changes be?” she said. “The only thing we could do would be cut people.”

The Provost’s Office reviewed four proposals, requested last March, from companies that offered bids on the warehouse contract. If one of the proposals had been accepted, all the jobs at the UNM Press warehouse would have been outsourced and the Albuquerque employees laid off.

Provost Wynn Goering sent a memo to the UNM Press staff on Nov. 18, stating that none of the bids were accepted and that the warehouse operation will stay in New Mexico for now.

“One element common to all the bids was a charge of approximately $100,000 for ‘excess inventory,’” Goering said in the memo. “Without that penalty each would have resulted in substantial cost savings over our current operations.”
The excess inventory charge came from books that UNM Press does not expect to sell immediately.

UNM Press Director Luther Wilson said there was nothing in Goering’s memo to indicate that there will be a reduction in the number of staff at the warehouse, or that outsourcing is still a possibility.

“I don’t know how they interpret this stuff. They interpreted the fact that going up for bid is a fait accompli,” he said. “That is not the case.”

Perz said she interpreted the memo to mean that, if the warehouse could reduce excess inventory, the Provost’s Office would reconsider outsourcing the operation.
“There was only one facet of the proposal that pushed the cost of outsourcing significantly over keeping it here,” she said. “So if we were to reduce our inventory, substantial cost savings could be realized (by outsourcing the warehouse operations) … If just cutting the inventory would make these enormous cost differences, why wouldn’t they do it?”

Richard Schuetz, associate director for business operations, said he is glad the warehouse was not outsourced, according to a press release from UNM Press. He said the Request for Proposals showed that the warehouse is cost-efficient compared to other bidders.

“We’re obviously pleased with the outcome,” Schuetz said in the press release. “We plan to use information from the RFP process to improve our operations, but we were particularly encouraged by how well we compared with the bidders in terms of the quality of our service.”

Wilson said the Provost’s Office plans to review the efficiency of the UNM Press warehouse in two years but did not specify changes to be made.

“The Provost did say that: ‘We’re going to give you a two-year period to see if you can realize the kind of (changes) that one or two of the bidders indicated in their bid process, on our own,’” he said. “Our associate director is working on that.”
Wilson said UNM Press has performed well over the last five months, contrary to general economic trends in publishing. He said the Press is trying to reduce its excess inventory, but that will not affect the future of the Press.

Wilson said the Press is working to bring costs down, because the economic climate is not favorable for discretionary spending, such as buying books.
“We’re vulnerable to those economic forces in a way that a lot aren’t,” he said.