Up to $5 million in annual energy conservation savings will be realized by 2017, said David Howe, interim senior director of Facilities Management and co-chair of the accounting and governance project team for the facilities initiative of the Administrative Streamlining Program (ASP), at a Sept. 28 brown bag lunch.

Nearly $10 million annually is on target for savings in Facilities Services by 2012 as a result of the new zone structure; the shift of the trades shops from a construction to maintenance function; consolidation of some mail, fleet and inventory operations; as well as workforce reduction in the shops and Building Care, he said, adding that most staffing reductions and responsibility changes have already occurred.

Kristine Mahoney, director of facilities and operations in the College of Human Ecology and ASP facilities initiative manager, used the event to field questions from the audience of 30 in Schoellkopf Memorial Hall, with members of the initiative's implementation teams on hand to provide answers. "We wanted to give the community the opportunity to understand the efforts we have undertaken, the adjustments we've made, and the results that they will see," she said.

The session was the second of seven informal gatherings hosted by the ASP this semester on the status of its cost-cutting initiatives.

Explaining how the university is achieving its energy savings, Lanny Joyce, director of energy management in Facilities Services and a member of the ASP facilities initiative energy efficiency project, said that in 2010-11, the university approved $9.6 million through 2011 to cut energy consumption using such measures as better lighting, sensors, ventilation and controls and has already realized between $300,000 and 400,000 in savings annually.

In response to a question regarding the role of the Cornell community in reducing energy consumption, Joyce said that such conservation measures as the CALS Green initiative at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences are an example for the entire university.

The facilities team members were also asked if they had benchmarked Cornell's savings against those by other universities.

Mahoney said that many universities have changed to a zone structure, but none have the split between the state and private funding that Cornell does, which makes it hard to do meaningful comparisons. Instead, she said, Facilities Services is doing ongoing assessment of its savings against specific metrics. She referred the audience to the Facilities website, zone management pages, for a full explanation of the logistics of zone management and service level agreements.

Are future savings or organizational changes anticipated? Joe Lalley, senior director of facilities operations and leading the mail, fleet and warehouse operations ASP facilities initiative, said that the centralized metering of U.S. mail will give the university data to negotiate future costs with the U.S. Postal Service. Lori Barry, director of facilities operations in the College of Veterinary Medicine and co-chair of the team on zone management, said that though the zone structure to improve the delivery of facilities services has been implemented, the partnerships between staff in the central groups and those in the units are still being developed. Karen Muckstadt, director of facilities in Campus Life and co-chair of the zone management team, agreed, saying that staffing may be short in some zones, and expressed commitment to right-sizing the zones as a top priority.

The zone management system has been well received by the colleges and units, Barry said. Brian Flannigan, facilities manager in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, said that the zones were "a real positive change. People are really happy about it." After the meeting, he said, "The work is defined by people who know and control the buildings."

Mahoney said that savings also will continue after the economy turns around. "As we fully realize the efficiencies resulting from process and organizational changes, we will see other areas which can be adjusted," she said. Gilbert Delgado, university architect and leader of the project management initiative, concurred: "As long as we keep that spirit of inquiry open, we will continue to improve."