Martha's bird...

Last year, President Saunders decided USM needed its own airplane. Neither she nor her subordinate administrators gave a rationale for the $1.89 million lease/purchase other than convenience. Now, after a couple of months, information about the use of the airplane is publicly available and suggests whether President Saunders' use of USM funds was a sound business decision or an expensive luxury. Readers recently provided "usmnews.net" with cost-benefit analyses of the lease/purchase of Saunders' airplane. Their analyses were entitled "The Plane, The Plane!" and "Dear USMNEWS.net". (See the reports at www.usmnews.net.) The first report for February 2009 includes three short round trips (100-200 miles each way) costing $10,500 per round trip. The second report for February and March 2009 includes a variety of trips that cost a total of $63,000. These trips could have cost a total of $2,289.19 using cars or commercial planes. These analyses support the conclusion that the plane is a very expensive luxury. "The Plane, The Plane!" and "Dear USMNEWS.net" might differ from your calculation of the costs and benefits, though. For example, have the relevant costs and benefits been identified? As with most measurements, what is included (or excluded) tends to determine the results. Try your hand at a cost-benefit analysis of President Saunders' airplane. Here's how to get started. Observe for yourself the actual usage of the plane. A link to FlightAware provides real-time tracking by tail number: http://flightaware.com/live/flight/N777AQ. Students, faculty, and administrators are invited to report their own cost-benefit analyses. I encourage President Saunders to offer her cost-benefit analysis, too. The two analyses found on www.usmnews.net provide examples to get started. Moreover, we should ask what President Saunders could have done with the money so extravagantly spent on an airplane: student scholarships or something unique like reducing student tuition?

This is an opinion column by Dr. Chauncey Depree. Comments can be sent to printz@usm.edu