aS : “Newyork Law § School 57 Worm Sever New York New York woo13.2360) 2131-2802 Ottice of tne Associate Dean for Academic Atars April 1, 1991 Dean Haywood Burns CUNY Law School 65-21 Main Street Flushing, N.Y. 11367 oe Dear Haywood: I was somewhat surprised to receive a copy of Dave's memo to you of 25 March. Dealing with Dave's incompetence, irrationality, and megalomania is, mercifully, your problem and not mine this year, and I don’t want to do anything that complicates further what should have been a simple matter. Asa result, ! am responding to you, not him, simply to reconfirm my understanding of what you have asked and to reiterate what | believe would be the simplest approaci for the Law School to take. Some months back you wrote me and called me to ask my help in unravelling an apparent problem in dealing with Apple. | also spoke with Victor at that time and with YongSoo since then. It seems that Apple has put the University on credit hold pending payment of a number of disputed (but probably accurate) bills by the Law School. Notwithstanding Dave's assessment, which he so kindly shared with me in his memo, this is a relatively simple matter. We know what we ordered, we know what we received, we know what we were billed for, we know what items had purchase orders cut for them, and we know what we paid. Any bookkeeper should be al have figured this out in-house relatively swiftly. 8y my reckoning, although the amount owed to Apple appears to be rather larger than I would have guessed when Heft, | had adequate funding built into the 90-91 budget that I had submitted last spring to have covered even the higher amount (by deferring for a year a number of planned expenditures) Three things made the situation more complex. First, apparently the oilice was funded for the year far below my request and subsequently had its budget cut stil further. This was a big mistake. | realize the stringency of the financial situation there, but that does not mean that one can save money simply by wishing things were different. If you go back over the Systems Oifice budgets of the last tive years you will see that that oifice sustained significant cuts each year, down to a point where, last year, | believe we probably expended less than half of what we had spent five years earlier. While this reflected in part less need for new equipment, it alsoshould have reflected very substantially increased needs for maintenance-elated items as a result of the aging of our equipment. At some point when one cuts one hits the bone. This year when that happened in the Systems Office apparently someone (Davet, Victor],the Budget Workgroup?, you?) kept on going, Second, the already-strapped budget was taxed further in an unexpected way because one of our largest single budget items (the DEC maintenance contract), was bid out in a costsaving effort that cost thousands of dollars extra, further depleting the already cut budget. Third, Dave has apparently been laboring mightily to make the problem seem more complicated and intractable thag jLis.. Based on his memo he seems to havessng 8 brought in outside auditors who Would have té Start from seratch tovaderesea series of questions that probably-Could have beds answered wnhouse ar week, a oe eee ee Well, as | suggested above, I’m glad it’s your problem rather than mine. Under the circumstances, I'm frankly not sure that anything I can do will be of any help. But, 2s always, | am eager to be responsive to any request you may make. | can’t break away from here to spend a day in Queens for no reason, nor do | find Dave's conditions particularly appealing. [it is bewildering to see that he will spare the staf to watch me photocopy material in his possession, but that he is unwilling to spare the staff to do that same photocopying, even when requested to do so by the person he reports to. It is perhaps not surprising that his office estimates that it take more than three hours to make fewer than 2 hundred photocopies. insofar as that is the case, itis little surprise that the State is in the current budget crisis.) As you know, you approached me to help, and | willingly responded. | spent a weekend poring over old order forms and late into a night working with YongSoo to get a relatively comprehensive accounting of what we had ordered. | followed up with a letter (actually, two letters; copies enclosed), and | suggested almost two months ago that it would be useful (to the Law School, not to me) to get me copies of purchase orders cut by the Law School to Apple from 1987-90. | am sure that there are fewer than 2 hundred of these; copying them will take however long it takes to make fewer than a hundred copies. If you want me to do anything further, | need to have those PO's, since without them « we can know what we got but not what we paid for. The equation is pretty simple: amount owed = amount received - amount paid for. If we want to know the first and we already know the second, we have to go back over the third. These are not secret documents, nor are they in need of high security. The originals are safely ensconced at Queens College (where they originated); the Law School only has copies. Moreover, | imagine that they are subject to disclosure pursuant to the State FOIL, and that had | made a request under that rubric | would have gotten the copies some time back. But enough of this. If you want me to follow up on this, I'd be happy to. li you can’t get Dave's staff to do it, may I suggest that you delegate someone from your officeor the Systems Oifice to make the copies (for my edification, ask them how long it took). If you don’t want me to do anything further, that's fine as well Two final observations. First, it seems to me that this problem is being dragged out unnecessarily, in 2 fashion that is not good for the Law School or the University. To the extent that the Law School has to look outside for service, it has to pay more than twice as much as the same work could be done in-house. Second, this is not a onetime problem. The cost reflects roughly two years of parts and supplies from Apple. The equipment we own is aging and the cost of maintaining it increasing logarithmically. Looking down the road you will need to budget adequate funds for the coming years either to maintain the equipment or to replace it. You cannot stave off replacing it forever; Apple no longer sells the MacPlus and parts will be available for several years but probably not much longer. Replacing them all is a huge cost. The Law School is best served by phasing in replacements, using the old machines for parts and cutting back on maintenance costs to reflect this. There are other equally sound approaches, but | think it is important to stress that, contrary to Dave's rantings, this is not a sudden or unaccountable act of mismanagement. The money owed Apple is money spent in order to maintain the schoo!'s current equipment. That equipment is simply getting older each year, and the cost of maintaining it will go up. have deliberately chosen not to respond to Dave's various slanders. As always, however, | am ready and willing to respond to any questions you may have. | have, | know, repeatedly let you know how unpleasant | find Dave's wheel spinning, But equally regularly | have stressed my readiness to address any concerns you may have, in any fashion you may deem helpful. Please don’t hesitate to raise any questions that seem relevant or important. | continue to be proud of my work on building a first-rate computer system for the Law School, just as | continue to be proud of my work on the program and the building from prior years. All the best,