URBANA – The Urbana campus' latest Stewarding Excellence team will look beyond the academic sphere toward its maintenance programs.

Facilities and Services represents a $41.3 million chunk of the $4 billion University of Illinois budget.

Jack Dempsey, the executive director of Facilities and Services, was not available for comment Friday.

This week, interim Chancellor Robert Easter and interim Vice Chancellor Richard Wheeler charged a committee with examining how the Urbana campus compares with other institutions, and whether there are costs savings.

"Given a challenging financial climate, it is vital for the campus to carefully consider our expenses and the ways in which our investments contribute to our mission," they wrote.

James Coleman, a professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, will lead the team.

Among the services provided by the unit are garage and car pool, mailing, parking, printing, stores and receiving, construction management, energy services, engineering services, building maintenance, grounds, waste management, campus code compliance, capital planning and landscape architecture.

The letter, available online at http://bit.ly/iaER8q, counseled the team not to have a fixed idea to look at ways to cut resources in its mission.

Urbana campus chief spokesman Robin Kaler said the unit was not being singled out for investigation.

"This is a major support unit that hasn't been assigned a team until now," she said Friday.

Easter and Wheeler included five questions the committee should consider during its review:

They include the history of funding for the maintenance of the campus, how effective Facilities and Services resources are being used, how other universities perform similar functions, whether cost recovery practices are and how to reduce the budget.

A different review showed a deferred maintenance backlog of over $500 million. The deferred maintenance has been in that range for several years, Kaler said.

The report is due May 16.