UI officials say suggestions taken from a public forum have led to big savings for the university.

UI President Sally Mason established a website in February to connect the university community with administrative budget discussions. This gave anyone the opportunity to submit cost-cutting suggestions.

To date, officials have received more than 500 suggestions and garnered approximately 8,000 visits on the website, UI spokesman Tom Moore said.

And with the UI facing a $34 million budget cut, officials said, even the smallest savings are important.

“The budget website generated a lot of good ideas, and they were implemented,” UI Provost Wallace Loh said. “And that’s how we’re going to meet that $34 million.”

A lot of input had to do with energy-saving methods, Loh said, and these changes could save the UI up to $3 million a year. At the UI Hospitals and Clinics, officials have set computers to turn off at 6 p.m. and reboot at 6 a.m. — a change from the 24-hour-a-day work they were doing before.

While something as simple as turning off a computer doesn’t seem like much, “it really does add up,” Loh said.

Even just having numerous departments purchase the same printers at the same time could snag some discounts for the UI, both in upfront costs and servicing fees in the future.

But they’re not going to throw away the printers they already have, so the benefits of such a practice wouldn’t show immediate results.

“The savings you don’t realize until maybe two or threes years from now,” Loh said. “But I think we will see tremendous savings.”

Aside from energy and purchasing savings, many suggestions centered on human resources.

University officials developed early retirement and alternate phased-retirement programs as a way to save money after receiving some suggestions pertaining to the policies.

Roughly 600 people have applied for the early retireme0nt program, Loh said, but he wasn’t sure if it would be enough to avoid layoffs and furloughs, steps other universities around the country have been forced to take. The University of California has laid off 884 employees, and officials are considering more cuts, including the possibility of nearly 1,000 more layoffs next academic year, according to a document for the school’s Board of Regents.

This is the type of situation officials want to avoid above anything else.

“We’re not as bad as California, but I want to make it clear that we are hurting,” Loh said. “Our No. 1 priority is saving jobs.”